Page Two
JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
Friday, July 10, 1036
The Jewish Western Bulletin
Published Every Thursday by VANCOUVER JEWISH ADMINimtATIVE COUNCIL
from the office of The Jewish Western Bulletin 342 West Pender Street, Vancouver, B.C. BULLETIN COMMITTEE
WILLIAM STEINER_____________________________________......___________________Chairman
BERNICE BROWN__________________________________________________________________.......Editor
HARRY MUSIKANSKY-_______:_________________________________________Business Manager
For advertising rates, phone Seymour 1909
Jews Victims of Rioters in Algiers
CAN WE BE STOICAL?
To any individual who has the duty and, in these days, the misfortune of editing a Jewish newspaper, much sympathy must be extended. Do not deceive yourself that the Editor is striking for a raise, or soliciting a hand-out. The reason is all-too-serious for either.
It is questionable, today, just how long the uninitiated could preserve his or her sanity if saddled with the burdens of editing a Jewish publication. And this is no joke. To publish the news you must acquaint yourself with the news. And in dealing with Jewish news of today, literally weeks may pass by before the editor comes across one item that may shed a beam of sunshine over the prevailing gloom.
He opens his Palcor communications. The lead story of today tells him "35, toll of Jewish dead in Palestine up to how." He has a momentary feeling of nausea and then says to himself—"Remember, this is only news." Then his eye travels to a small item in the middle of the page. Mr.
Arabs Aroused by Tense Situation in Palestine
working on co-operative land somewhere near Haifa, stopped in his work to pump a drink for some Arabs, walking by. They shot him in the back as he stood at the well. He was 26 years old. The editor's carefully nurtured stoicism fades away. He becomes merely a sick and sadened individual—^but the paper must come out.
He turns to a lively American-Jewish weekly, edited in Boston. Hurrah, their Jewish welfare drive has gone far over the top. A brief moment of gloating follows, but next column is the picture of a Jewish track man who feels he just must try for a title and a trophy in Berlin this summer. "What can be the use of grinding the news out, when traitors are amongst us?" Mr. Editor groans to himself.
Then a swift glance at the day's news—^"Eighty-five Per Cent, of Polish Jewry Believed Starving," "Silver Shirts Claim Membership of 6,000,000," "German Jew Disappears After
Being Charged with Rassenschande," "Lord-Moves
Barring of Further Jewish Immigration to Palestine"—these are typical headlines.
We are convinced that 24 solid hours without a break, spent at this time by the average, normal, feeling individual would be productive of a well-rounded lunatic, slave to hallucinations, fearful for his own shadow, ready to jump from any high spot.
Naturally, an editor does not work 24 hours without break, and that is the safety valve. But every step of the difficult way he questions himself—^"How stoical can I be?"
That is a question for you as well as for the editor. Phlegmatism in its many forms has beconie a part and parcel
PARIS — Disturbances, in some cases of an anti-Semitic character, are reported from the Algerian Provinces of Oran, Alger and Con-stantine.
At Bou Saada a Jew, accused of homicide, was lynched by a native crowd almost in the presence of magistrates who were investigating his alleged crime on the spot.
At Oran trolley cars were held up by a crowd of strikers and shots were fired.
While these incidents in themselves were comparatively minor, the situation in Algeria is described by the press here as grave. It began, with an economic crisis, and Arab-Jewish differences have been fired by events in Palestine. To that disturbed situation the infection of the strike spirit from France has added another element.
Apparently the authorities are acting with vigor. Three hundred Senegalese riflemen have been sent to Bou Saada, where the Arab movement seems to have been most violent.
MEMORIAL SERVICES
For the three world outstanding Zionist leaders
DR. THEODORE HERZL - CHIAM BIALIK DR. NACHUM SOKOLOW
COMMUNITY CENTRE
THie§day, July 14, 1936 - 8.30 p.m.
Main Speaker: Babbi J. L. Zlotnik
Auspices of the Zionist' Groups
Tribute is Paid to Dr. Sokolow
ASBURY PARK, N. J. —More than 500 delegates gathered for the opening of the 28 th annual convention of the Federation of Polish Jews in America here. The convention opened with memorial services for Dr. Nahum Sokolow. Zelig Tygel, New York executive director of the federation, eulogized Dr. Sokolow. Many other prominent Americans spoke.
"THE SECOND SHOE"
Protocols o( Zion
perhaps it is already an established acquired characteristic of the life of the Jew. Here today and gone tomorrow, he says to himself, or "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," in the words of Koheleth.
This phlegmatism swathes him with a coating of seeming unfeelingness, but, under the surface he is asking himself, along with the harassed and depressed editor, "How stoical can we be?*
IN VAIN
Reward is the basis of life . . . No matter what system we live tinder, whether it be our present eapitalist state, or the Utopian state of Socialism, without an imcenijive for AVhieh to strive, without some re\tums for work we do, there is little joy in work'ng,
(Continued from last week)
It may not be amiss to add a word as to the activities of the man accused of having composed the scandalous document with which I am dealing. Adolphe Cre-mieux ((1796-1880) was a great French statesman, an eminent jurist, a brilliant orator, several times elected deputy, twice minister of justice, head of the Provincial Government in 1870 after the capture of Napoleon 3rd at Sedan, elected life senator in 1875. Cre-mieux was a great Jew and did everything in his power to better the desperate conditions in which Jews found themselves the world over. Above all, he was a humai^i-tarian.
111 Viv/^ii;
Time, care, preparation, energry expended are the things people should corsider and appreciate. If ^ve forget those things then \ye ariel dtefeating one of the essential joys of human life— satis^fa'ction.
Weeks of preparation, study, practice, Averit 'nto the two plays that were presented the Young Judaean dramatic group on SaturdJay night July 4t'h, and by the applause and' the enthusiasm with which the plaj^s wedei received by the hand/ful of Vancouver Jewish people present, It'his was very evident.
However even the little encouragement the youthful a<;tors did redelive from those present, it was not sugicient compensation for those who had' de^-oted .so much oif their t'me to this' endeavor. It vr"s heard expressed by one of tlhe actors '* After all that work, th\.s is wli'at we have to come d'OAvn and perform before—it was a waste of time."
The plays were acted exceptionally well and the Young Judaeans intend to repeat them in the fall. They should be supported. Young people need leincouragement.
Churchmen Use Zepplin To Protest
NEW YORK—A letter of protest was sent via the Zeppelin Hinden-burg by a group of unprejudiced individuals in the United States against Germany's policy towards minorities.
Signed by a number of noted churchmen, the letter declares that "the friendly gesture shown in the flight of the Zeppelin Hindenburg does not obscure those issues which are estranged in our peoples."
"As members of the Christian faith we find it difficult to extend our hand of fellowship to those in Germany who seemingly ignore the common right of all human beings to live and work without prejudice or persecution because of race, color or creed," the letter pointed out.
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There are two incidents which stand out as excellent ilustrations of his character. One of these occurred in 1832 when he learned that his father in 1796 had been forced to compromise with his creditors. Cremieux sought all these creditors or their heirs and paid them not only the principal, but interest accrued for 36 years.
The other has to do with the appeal which Cremieux in I860 (the very year he is alleged to have written the above "Manifesto") addressed to the Jews of France in behalf of the Christians of Lebanon. This appeal is one of the finest I have ever read and I cannot refrain from quoting it:—
"The Christians of the East are subjected to the most horrible persecution. Torture, rape, assassination, pillage, burning, the murder of women, children and old people, even mutilation of corpses — such is the picture presented by the whole region of the Lebanon. Blood is shed; misery and famine are spreading among a dense population, whom Mohammedan fanaticism is destroying in a war even against the intention and forces of the Turkish government, and whose sole crime is that they worship the Christ. French Jews, let us be the first to come to the aid of our Christian brothers; let us npt await the results of diplomacy, which is always so slow and which will regulate the future; let us alleviate present needs. Let a large subscription be begun today in Paris, and let a Jewish committee be organized tomorrow. Do not let us lose one day, one hour; let thj signal for abundant relief be given in the midst of this Jewish assembly, gathered in this capital of civilization. This signal will be answered by our brethren in England, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and all Europe; in the countries that recognize them as citizens, and in those that still refuse them this noble title. You, also, Jews of the American countries whep religious liberty is triumphant, you v/il! help the Catholics of Asia, who are so cruelly oppressed by superstition. Let the rich Jew bring his large offering, the poor Jew his pious obolus. But a still greater thought shall rise from this first impulse. Who knows? Perhaps God, who rules over all, has permitted these catastrophies in order to give a solemn occasion to j all the cults to aid one another, for mutual defense against the furiors
hatreds, the daughters of supersti-tution and barbarity. A permanent committee in every country, with eyes open for all the victims of fanaticism, without distinction of religion, must be created and supported. The misfortunes that fall at this moment upon so many innocent victims arouse the sympathy of all. They suggest the thought of a future protection against this scourge, which our ceatufy repudiates with horror—religious persecution."
I would ask my readers to consider these incidents. I leave to their judgment the verdict as to whether Cremieux could possibly have written such a vicious document as that which was attributed to him by the Morning Post.
* « * References
The Jewish Encyclopedia, articles "Cremieux" and "Alliance Israelite Universale", containing among other things the quotations cited above.
Graetz, History of the Jews, Jewish Publications Society, Philadelphia, vol. 5, p. 701.
The Jewish Chronicle, London, September 17th, 1920.
Article "A Champion of Jewry" by Norman Bentwich in B'nai B'rith Magazine, January, 1935.
For information regarding Shma-kov, of A. B. Tager, "The Decay of Czarism," Jewish Publications Society, Philadelphia, 1935.
It is rather interesting to note that the Moffling Post did not respond very graciously to the suggestion that it publish the authentic appeal and pleaded that lack of "space does not permit" its publication.
I may add that the Organizing Committee which, in December 1860, issued and signed the appeal to found the Alliance Israelite Uni-verselle consisted of six men and that Cremieux was not one of them. These six were Aristide Astruc, later Chief Rabbi of Belgium; Isidore Cahen, Editor of "Archives Israelites," Jules Car-vallo. Civil Engineer, Narcisse Leven, Advocate; Professor Eugene Manuel; and Charles Netter, Merchant. Cremieux became President in 1863. I have already pointed out that the authentic appeal does not bear the remotest resemblance to the "Manifesto," and I think we may well be convinced of this by the following extract therefrom which states the objects of the Alliance:—
"To defend the honor Jewish name whenever attacked; to encourage.
By DOROTHY KAHN
The courage of the Yishub is described in the following article by Dorothy Kahn, member of the editorial staff of the Palestine Post and the author of ^'Spring Up, O Well", a book on Palestine just published in England.—The Editor.
The old Yiddish story of the second shoe is known to many. It goes something like this: A traveller came into a hotel late at night and asked for a room. He was told that there was only one vacant room and this was next to the room of a very nervous man. Therefore he must remember to make no noise. The traveller agreed. While undressing, however, he forgot the admonition and tossed one shoe on the floor with a loud thud. Then, suddenly remembering, he gently set down the other shoe. About three hours later there was a thump on the wall and his neighbour called in anxiously, "WTien are you going to throw the second shoe?"
For more than five weeks, the Jews in Palestine have been in the predicament of the nervous man next door. Since the black hour on April 19 when slaughter began in the streets of Jaffa, they have been waiting for second shoes. And the second shoes have come flying from all directions. Today shooting in Jerusalem. The next day burning of crops in the Keren Hayesod settlements in the Jezreel Valley. And the day after the destruction of a water pump at Kfar Tabor.
For this outbreak of lawlessness has had none of the orderliness of a war. There has been no mass attack and no front. There has been sniping and incendiarism and uprooting of trees. One never knew where, when, or at whom the assailants would strike next. One day they shot two old men in the Old City of Jerusalem. One night they shot three young men in a cinema. Another night they shot and blinded a watchman in a northern colony. One Friday they stoned and killed a doctor who was in their path when they came from the Taifa Mosque. Another morning they stoned and killed a student returning home from the Hebrew University. And this morning I learn that a British policeman in the Old City has been mowed down.
So there have been long weeks of waiting for these second shoes. The Jews have been expecting something and not knowing just what. They knew only that human sacrifices were being made and that precious trees and wheat, which they had made to grow in rocky soil, were being destroyed nightly. They knew also that retaliation was not in their code of ethics and that they would hold back their youth as long as possible. Meantime, what steps the Government would take or when, they did not know. Therefore the Jewish population could do little beyond sitting and waiting for the. second shoe.
Before I came to Palestine I had heard the Jew being analysed, psychoanalysed, and re-analysed. American Rabbis devoted their sermons to
intensely absorbing and enjoyed nothing more than wallowing in the abnormalities of the Jews in general and myself in particular. Whenever a Rabbi or a lecturer had a little bit of psycho-analysing to do, I was sitting in the first row in order to enjoy to the full this probing and diagnosis of a sick, hysterical mentality.
Since I have been living with Jews in their homeland, I have come to know what a superficial quality this
nervous hysteria is, inherent perhaps in the Jew living in alien territory; but not inherent in the Jew himself. I have come to know that, when dwelling at home, the Jew plows fields, builds roads, cleans out chicken coops and doesn't find time to analyse himself.
But I never realised what a completely normal person Jews can be xmtil I saw them waiting for the Second Shoe. If ever a people had a tendency toward hysteria or nervousness it should have broken out during these disturbances in a violeni^ form. For those of us who were not in Palestine in 1929, it was our first actual contact with the savagery of some of the Arab population.
We knew that we were a small Jewish island in a vast Arab sea, dependent upon the good graces of the British Empire. But the implication of these words only struck us full force during those black weeks when lawlessness was at large, when the attitude of the British Government was not clearly defined, and when we^ Jews could do no more than wait for the second shoe.
And yet, despite the uniquely precarious position of the Jewish population, there was not one jet ofi nervous hysteria. There was no need| for analysis. Here were 400,000 peo-r pie facing bombs and bullets and^ destruction with the calm, self-f possession and self-restraint witl which pacifists the world over hav learned to face the destructive force which they could not combat. Thel were normal people facing an alj normal situation in a normal wa^ Therefore there is little need q describe their behaviour. No doutl the English and French populatiorl behaved in the same way during tlJ war. Despite the Arab strike, tH closing of the Jaffa Port, and th| dangerous conditions of the higM ways, the Jews tried to carry of their routine work as usual. The! waited anxiously for the broadcas] of the OHicial Communiques. Littlj knots gathered on the streets front of those shops which had raj dios.
First there was curfew in Tej Aviv. Then there was curfew iij Jerusalem. The Jews remained quiet] ly indoors after seven o'clock in most unhysterical manner, Mori often than not, in recent weeks, thJ quiet Jerusalem nights have beeil punctuated with shots. A few night] ago a bomb fell near a house in thd Jewish quarter of Rahavia, tearina a hole in the ground. There was nq hysteria.
It has not been easy for the younj
^_____^ _ bloods to turn the other cheek whili
ireVarticTla7and pecuirar^i^^^^^^ ^l^eir barley fields were being burned
of the Jew. Lecturers used their platforms to tell us what we are and why we are so. Authors expounded
of the it is by all
means at our disposal, the pursuit of useful handicrafts; to combat, where necessary, the ignorance and vice engendered by oppression; to work, by the power of persuasion and by all the moral influences at our command, for the emancipation of our brethren who still suffer under the burden of exceptional legislation; to hasten and solidify complete enfranchisement by the intellectual and moral regeneration of our brethren; such, in its chief aspects, is the work to which the Alliance Israelite Universel'e hereby consecrates itself."
at great length on the ever-engrossing subject of the Jewish mentality. When I came to Palestine, therefore, I knew that some of us had an inferiority complex that displayed itself by our acting superiorly. Others of us had a superior complex that displayed itself by our acting in-feriorly. At all events, all of us Jews had a multitude of individual complexes. And all of us had a few complexes in common. We were highly excitable, hysterical and inclined to wring our hands and go completely to pieces in a crisis. The Rabbis and authors and lecturers could tell you exactly why Jews were hysterical. They could trace this hysterica complex back to a lot of other complexes. They could show you the Jewish abnormalities in black and white on neat little diagrams.
In America I found these diagrams
their forests razed and their coUeg^ students stoned to death. But orderd had come from high authority that there was to be no retalliation. And with a discipline and self-restraint of normal people, these youths re-| frained from retalliation.
In America I learned much about] the complexes and nerves and hys-J terics of Jewish people. But in Palestine I observed them waiting fori the second shoe with a calm, quieti dignity and self-restraint that need4 no psycho-analysis.
JEWISH PIONEER
PASSES AWAY!
Louis Bayer of Lynn Valley, B.C.,I passed away quietly last Sunday. Mr.l Bayer was one of British Columbia's! pioneers. He participated in the Yu-I kon gold rush and has been a resi-l dent of British Columbia for manyj years. He is survived by his wife,] Mrs. Bayer.