The Problem of Jewry.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20915, 24 July 1933, Page 8

The Problem of Jewry.

Cable messages on Saturday described how Jewish communities in various parts of the world are organising to boycott German products and otherwise to retaliate upon a country which has lately allowed anti-Semitic feeling to promote a mass-persecution the like of which has not been known in the last 50 years. Unity is needed, however, for effective organisation of

j this kind; and it is interesting to discover a re-emergence of the old problem of Jewry which has been unsettled for centuries, but which has taken a new complexion in modern times with the growth of the Zionist movement. A writer in the " English Review" points out that Jewish people are making a great effort to face the problem. This li vast endeavour," he states, has been promoted by the American Jewish Congress, and is " an answer " to the anti-Jewish feeling and acts "in Germany and elsewhere in " Europe and to the enforced decay "of Judaism in Russia." One of its manifestations was the Jewish conference at Geneva last August, where it was decided, inter alia, to elect a " Jewish World Parliament" in 1934; but the prime aim of the new movement is " to emphasise the "essential unity of world-Jewry, " and at the same time to enlist the " help of Christendom in raising the " status and condition of Jews in " certain Christian countries." Last century Germans adduced anthropological reasons for driving the Jew from their midst; but the Nazis today regard the Jews as an underworld nation whose machinations have precipitated the present economic crisis. F3ut persecutors and persecuted alike, says the writer in the "English Review,'' err when they use such terms as "Jewish na-j " tionality'' and "Jewish world " unity." The process of denationalisation has gone too far; and though Jews everywhere have kindred sympathies and kindred memories, it is impossible to apply to them such a test of nationality as for instance Renan's, which demands the " actual consent, the desire to " live together, the will to preserve " worthily the undivided inheritance "which has been handed down." Though the principle of Jewish nationality is recognised in international law, thanks to references to minorities in the peace treaties, it is doubtful whether there is a Jewish nation, even in Palestine; and the remainder of the world's 15.000,000 Jews are scattered in every country, with varying status everywhere, assimilated in some cases, and in the others at least partly assimilated. A strong feeling, it is true, does exist among Jews that national consciousness should be encouraged. Eminent members of the race like Einstein, Lord Reading, and the Warburgs have laboured for the Zionist movement, and funds to provide a permanent national home in Palestine have been contributed from all parts of the world. But there are a great many Jews who neither labour for Zionism nor subscribe to any community of interests among the scattered members of their race; and it would be difficult to find ideas, thoughts, or intentions at once world-wide and fundamentally Jewish in origin.