10
CAKAD I AM J KWI S M H t VIIW
1928
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In order to determine the part that will be played by American Jewry in the Jewish Agency in accordance with the terms of the Mandate for Palestine held by the British Government there will take place in New York City October 20 and 21 a conference of leading non-Zionists representing Jews all over the continent. Louis Marshall, president of the American Jewish Committee, will preside over this conference as he presided over the one held in 1924 and the one in 1925. It was in February, 1924, that Louis Marshall, Judge Horace M. Stern, Colonel Herbert H. Lehman and Dr. Cyrus Adler called the first Non-Partisan Conference on Palestine to consider problems rising out of the interest of American Jews in the Palestinian venture. Attending it were representatives of American Jews who have been known as non-Zionists for thirty years. The conference met again the next year to adopt a resolution calling for a Jewish Agency to consist of a council and executive constituted by a substantial representation of non-Zionists.
You will remember that in 1927 Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Louis Marshall named a body of experts under the leadership of four high commissioners making up the Palestine Survey Commission to investigate exhaustively conditions of all kinds in Palestine which had bearing on the upbuilding of the Holy Land. Their report has already been accepted with reservations by the Zionist Organization session in Berlin in August. This month it will have the attention of the non-Zionist divisions of American Jewry.
Mr. Marshall is right when he says the conference is a momentous event. He believes that the time has come for the adoption of a definite course of action concerning Palestine, one in which Zionists and non-Zionists can work together in harmony. His group represents power, money,, class, interest without passion, and the beautiful ability to listen one to the other and all to one. A wicked, shameless wag from some of the less polite sectors of Jewry might call these gentlemen the Goyishe front to the Zionist enterprise. However, although they can't sing "Hativah" they have more influence than some who know all the verses and they are going to say what they will do. Attention, then, October 20.
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The incident in Massena, N.Y., following the disappearance of a Gentile child arid centering around the quizzing of an Orthodox rabbi as to whether Jews ever make human sacrifices on a holiday, has been called closed by the state police investigating officer. The little girl having been found in the woods without the help of the Jews just as she wandered away without their knowledge, and the milling crowds having dwindled from the streets, the police officials and the mayor have apologized and consider the matter over and fit to be forgotten by all concerned. In a way this might as well be.
The Jews of Massena and their rabbi who was summoned to police station for an incredible purpose can obtain little redress in return for the nervous strain of the Yom Kippur days and the high tension under which they took part in services Sunday evening. Something of their feeling may be understood from the signed statement of Rev. Brennglass: "I was called by Trooper McCann to come to the police station. When I came I was asked by the trooper the following questions: Do you know that a child was lost? I answered yes. Have you a holiday to-morrow? Aaswer, Yes. Could you inform me if your people in the old country are offering human offerings on a holiday? Answer: I am dreadfully surprised to hear such a foolish, ridiculous and contemptible question from an officer in the United States of America, which is the most enlightened and civilized country in the world. Do you realize the seriousness of this question? The trooper said then that a foreigner told him so. I told hint that it is a aaka and. mahcioaf accusation. Tbetr the trooper aafced snin a
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question. Did your people offer human offerings in the olden times? My answer was in the negative. I then told the trooper that we shall have to know who the foreigner is, he is dangerous and should be taught a lesson that he is in the United States of America, and I left the station."
Unfortunately this is the one sort of happening which can never be called closed for good and all. Governor-Smith expressed his horror at the resurrection of the libelous myth of ritual murder' and everything he says goes forth to the world. Louis Marshall of the American Jewish Committee is the spokesman for the outraged Jews of Massena and their co-religionists throughout the country. Jewish heads of this and that organization and most especially the always voluble politicians are loud in their indignation and their denunciation of the dumb-bell officials who blundered into this stupid mess. Every eriort put forth in this case, such as the movement to displace the town mayor and the suggestion to punish the state trooper who questioned the rabbi, etc., although not uncalled for, can only make matters worse. Such action keeps the thing alive longer and widens through publicity the circles of lingering suspicion.
Wherever Jews live on this continent they will retain their deep sense of shock because actually in this Land far away from those black, backward countries where Jews stay trapped for life, such an absurmty could rear itself up as an investigation based-on the belief of poice officials in the myth of ritual murder! Ignorant Gentiles-and some not so ignorant will be unwilling or unable to relinquish that poisonous atom of lingering distrust against Jews in general. In time it will be nothing much that the handful of Jews of Massena went through several days in a serious situation when they feared for their saiety. Even the resentment and hurt of the Orthodox' rabbi will be eased after enough years have elapsed. The Jewish island within Massena will carry on as usual. But relations between human beings and human beings, children and adults, have been bnrised and have suffered damage. The flavour of buried resentment and iaault is hard to eradicate in any case. Even aa innaJliiiwil traps 0* ***** muddx* pp rhf 4r*rTtT�^�naiii � liitiaiaai* " ..