ANTI-JEW SPIRIT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22197, 6 December 1946, Page 5

ANTI-JEW SPIRIT

GROWTH DEPLORED FEELING IN BRITAIN PALESTINE REFLECTION (Spcci.il Correspondent.) (11 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 5. Anxiety about the growth of antisemitism in Britain as a result of Jewish anti-British propaganda and the terrorist outrages in Palestine was expressed at the annual meeting of .the Council of Christians and Jews in London.

The Vicar of Leeds. Rev. A. S. Reeve, whose parish contains proportionately the largest Jewish community in Britain. said he was seriously perturbed at the situation developing in Britain between Christians and Jews as a result of the .terrorist outrages in Palestine. When the Council of Christians and Jews was founded 18 months' ago they had no difficulty in obtaining members. Change of Mind

Now, however, he found a change of mind in the most responsible people, and he would go so far as to say that if the present trend continued he would find it extremely difficult to keep his own council together. He appealed to Christians to live up to the spirit of their religion in their approach to the matter, and to the Jewish community to condemn the outrages.

The reaction against the Jews is becoming very strong in Britain. It is s.till below the surface, but it would take very little to make it articulate. There is also such resentment in Britain about Jewish-inspired anti-British propaganda in the United States. Rabbi A. C. Super, senior minister of the United Hebrew Congregation of Leeds, said that the Jewish side of the case had not been properly presented by the British press. He was not going to make accusations against British soldiers and police, but a definite case could be made out to show that acts of terrorism had also been perpetuated on the British side. The present antisemific briefing of British soldiers in Palestine should be stopped. Mr. Neville Laski, K.C.. said the outrages must be condemned whatever their cause. He agreed that, there had been a growth of anti-Semitism in Britain, particularly in the provincial cities. As a British citizen he was horrified and outraged at some things now being said, particularly in the United States, about this country and the Government. British Best Friends of Jews

The British people had been the best friends of the Jew, and if the Jewish community forfeited that goodwill, they would lose something upon which they depended. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, said the extent of the outrages was calculated to encourage anti-semi.tism and there was evidence that it had done so. He moved a resolution placing on record the council’s abhorrence of the outrages and appealing .to the people of Britain to guard against any tendency to condemn the Jews as a whole for the crimes of “a numerically insignificant minority."

The resolution was carried unanimously. The Yorkshire Post, commenting editorially upon Rabbi Super’s allegations against the reporting of the Jewish case in the British press, says:

“The British press reports events in Palestine and their reaction here as fairly as it can. This newspaper is attacked by the Jews for not printing all .the propaganda they send in. Our policy is one of restraint and it is applied to both sides, to Jews who make wild attacks on Britain and to other citizens who are antagonised to the point of loathing and anger by the reports they hear. There are extremists on both sides/’