Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1919-01-03

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THE COLUMBUS JEWISH CHRONICLE
^''*S?Ohio^'""""'""'   .\ilEKLY DEVOTI^D TO THE INTERESTS OF JEWISH PEOPLE OF COLUMBUS AND VICINITY
VOL. II.
COLUMBUS, OHIO, FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1919.
No. 1
CALLS ON CHRISTIANS TO SUPPORT JEWISH CAtSE
Head of Greek Church Endorses Jewish Aspirations.-
Porphyries II, Archbishop of Mt.. Sinai, from his seat in Jeru¬ salem, has issued an appeal to all the members of the Greek Orth¬ odox Church in Syria, Palestine, and the world over to support with all their heart the aspira¬ tions of the Jews. The follow¬ ing letter has been written by him in his official' capacity as head of the Greek Church and community in Palestine, to Dr. Chaim Weizman, President of the Zionist Commission to Pal¬ estine :
"We, who belong to the Hel- , lenic stock, sympathize'with.the aspirations of the Jewish people in regard to the settlement of Palestine. We think that no claim could be more justified than this. The Jews, as the bearers of modern civilization, and as one of the mpst enlight¬ ened people of the world, will not only bring all their innate capacities to bear ujpon the de¬ velopment of this country which' has been desolated by Turkish misrule, but will instil in the poverty stricken inhabitants a spirit of progress and emulation, and in the course of time Pales¬
tine will again become a land flowing with milk and honey, and will   realize   the   Biblical   pro¬ phecies and promises. 'Hence, as a Greek, a  Christian,  and as Archbishop of Mount Sinai, the mountain of the Ten Command¬ ments, I support with all my heart   the   aspirations   of  the Jews, who, when all is said, have a right to settle in' the land of their fathers, which I pray may henceforth become the land,of their birth ,thanks to the initia¬ tive and chivalrous protection of the great and liberal Brtish Em¬ pire.  'We Christians owe much to Judaism, fo;r its Bible is our Bible, and we ought to forget the mutual grievances which have their root in the perversity of human   nature.   Oh   this   holy city   Christianity,   Islam   and Judaism   should   hold out the hand to, one another in perfect harmony.   This is the service of the God whom we all worship. We are iall brethren in the spirit of the verse which says, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy¬ self,' and of the saying, "The Ig^insman is he who does loving kindness.'"
IMPRESSIONS OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH
CONRGESS
By Max Heller
Impressions, be they ever.so vivid, fresh and clear, may, at the same time, be biased or out of focus or both; yet they will even then retain a certain value as "touches of nature," so long as we bear in mind that they are not claiming to present statis¬ tics or exact vaVues of any sort. In the first impression salient points "leap into the eye," as ' Hebrew and German idioms put it.J they may be obscured, after familiarity have leveled "them with their surroundings.
I should like to present a few of the most striking impressions I have carried away from a re¬ markable gathering.   Many ac¬ counts of its proceedings will be published, more or less to the point, with more or less parti¬ san coloring; there ought to be some sketch of it along its per¬ sonal, human, rather than along its business side.   There will be much passionate criticism, a cer¬ tain amount of censure on the part of opponents, ,even of some disinterested   onlookers;   there will be those who will sneer, and mock, those who will denounce and rage, those who will solemn¬ ly warn and earnestly deprecate; but hardly any one in his senses will be found to contend that this American Jewish Congress has been a mere village postoffice gathering of insignificant nobod¬ ies, that it offers no points of novelty, and that it will be passed over, with a shrug of disdain, either by the American public or by Jewish communities abroad. One need not fill his mouth with orotund expressions like "epoch- making" which have lost some ' of their strikingness and reson¬ ance through overuse; yet one need not be its thick-and-thin champion at all to concede that the American Jewish Congress will loom large in Russia and Rumania and that our ovra non- Jewish fellow-citizens, even in¬ cluding a certain periodical pur¬ veyor of pictured and literary satire, are hardly likely to con¬ sider it otherwise than seriously
course, intensely  unmistakably human.   I also imagine myself a bitter opponent of the Jewish nationalism which had the al¬ legiance of an overwhelming ma¬ jority in the gathering, and yet irresistibly  fascinated  by   the wide-ranging variety of Jewish types' that  had been brought together, not only from virtually every part of the country, but al¬ most literally from every class of society and every branch of occupation.   The millionaire Was there and so was the working man; as is proper in a congress, lawyers were in evidence, from federal and other judges of na¬ tional reputation, dovm to the aspiring young attorney of, in¬ cipient career; rabbis abounded, from   the   Eastern type with picturesque beards, ever present silk cap and long coat, up to or down to, as you may prefer, the fashionably  dressed  reform rabbis of highly assimilated con¬ gregations.    (I counted exactl^r eight Reform rabbis.)   Writers,' of cour&e, attended almost- be¬ yond any other class, as may be looked for from the "people of the book"; there was a multi¬ tude of eminent journalists, even above the tables for the press at which sat some sixty odd report¬ ers of diverse degrees, languages and measures  of trustworthi¬ ness; the eminent Yiddish and llebrew writers, poets and play¬ wrights were, of course, well represented,   tt  -was  curiously characteristic that the labor ele¬ ment in the Congress, through what seemed rather poor tactics on Its part, met with a defeat, in the injudicious attempt to elect, as permanent president of the Congress, the well known and greatly    loved    Yiddish    poet Jehoash who submitted to the rejection in the most admjirable temper.   There were plenty of physicians, however, too, profes¬ sors, teachers, politicians, pro¬ fessional and otherwise; engi¬ neers, artists, government offi¬ cials, diplomatists of high rank, soldiei^s and sailors; there was a
A convention of that sort even sprinkiing of women, many ot
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its bitterest opponents ought to have some curiosity to study, not through the blood-shot goggles of anger, but as a human, a Jew¬ ish phenomenon.
Being Jewish, undoubtedly as to its constituency, certainly also as  to  its objects,  it was, of
them eminent.
A notable symptom, in many ways' inevitable, was the poor discipline of this motley gather¬ ing. Sessions, almost invaria¬ bly, began an hour or an hour and a half later than announced; two judges of high rank and a
doughty colonel, all of them pre¬ siding officers of much exj^eri- ence, were kept busy, sometimes breathless, pounding the gavel for order, urging the audience to be seated, asking visitors not to take   the   seats   of   delegates, menacing turbulent people in the galleries; at one time, when the radical Doctor Shidlowsky had offended the religious sensibili¬ ties of the orthodox rabbis, there was a tumultuous uproar, with rabbinical  arms  dramatically cleaving the air, during which all proceedings were impossible and a split immiment.   The doc¬ tor's nationalism was so radical that it had no room for religion; when   he   coolly   claimed   that Judaism had no other thari a na¬ tional meaning for him, it would hav delighted the heart of any anti-Zionist reformer to witness the storm of exasperated fury, a hysterical, really a pathetic fury which broke out in the front row of the heavy-bearded men with silk caps, the ultramontane right of    the    Zionist    camp,    the Misrachi.
An observer, however, of more than mere pleasant surfaces had to   become   reconciled,   as   the meeting proceeded, to conditions which were due neither to inat¬ tention, nor to bad manners, but partly to oriental temperament, partly to nervous restlessness, ntiostly   to    uncontrolable    en¬ thusiasm.   If the delegates were prone to what were only in- ap¬ pearance  terrific  clashes, they could also rise to„heights of en¬ thusiasm  which  beggared' de¬ scription, which far surpassed,, in ardor of zeal, in ecstasy of joy,   anything   one could ever have witnessed elsewhere.   Doc¬ tor Friedenwald presented his Palestine   resolutions,   the   un¬ looked-for climax of the nieet¬ ing; with' a tremor in his voice, with a light, as of tears, in'his eyes; when the crowd rose, with a shout of joy, to acclaim this crystallization  of the hope' of centuries, it, burst into a roar of exultation which shook the win¬ dows; the singing of the Zion hymn,   of   the   "Star-Spangled Banner" was taken up with a fervor that bespoke the pent-up feelings   which were   relieving themselves; and a spice of thrill¬ ing darma was lent to the scene, right in front of the platorm, by the frantic leaping, with large Zionist and American banner in either hand, of poor Chone, pa¬ thetic victim of Russian pogrom- ism, the tragic mascot of every Zionist' convention.
I spoke of-Doctor Shidlowski's address and of the fury which was aroused by the unc;pmpro- mising extremism of his nation¬ alistic sentiments.   The spisode recalls two unique aspects, one might say, complications, of the Congress; its confusion'of lan¬ guages and the attitude of the extreme left; socialists and radi¬ cals of various   schools,   both Zionistic and non-Zionistic.  One embarassing   entanglement   of the   Congress   arose from the fact that a not incbnsiderable proportion of its membership, in fact, some of its most brilliant speakers and most forceful per¬ sonalities, while able to handle conversational English, felt al¬ together at home only in the Yiddish idioms with which most of the audience, too, especially the   galleries,   seemed   more familiar.   When such men ad¬ dressed the chair and their fel¬ low-delegates in Yiddish, there were many of the delegates who could not make out a 'Word; sometimes it would happen that the presiding officer was unable to follow such a speaker; in ad¬ dition, there was a. species of war-ri9k, not to be altogtither left out of account, in using a language, other than the vernac¬ ular, in a public assembly.   One delegate, by the way, aroused (Continued on page 4)
NEW YORK JEWISH WAR RELIEF DRIVE GOES OVER TOP
INSTRUCTIONS FOR
PORMER S. A. T. C. MEN
Twenty-seven thousahd indi¬ viduals contributed to the Jew¬ ish War Relief Fund of New York, where a drive was recent¬ ly conducted for it among the Jewish population. ( The $5,000,- 000 mark set as the goal was reached and   exceeded ,by the committees, working under the direction of Felix M. Warburg. The total collected was $5,039,- 101.    One of the larger collec¬ tive   contribution  to  the fund was a donation of $250,000 re¬ ceived from Mr. Harry Fishel, Treasurer of the Centij'al Relief Committee.   Among the larger individual   subscriptions   were the following:
Nathan Straus, $200,000.
Jacob H. Schiff, $100,000.
Felix M. Warburg, $ldO,000.
Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim, $40,-
000, ^
Nathan Hochheimer, $40,000. '
Samuel Untermeyer, $^5,000.
The Lehman family, $25,000.
Mortimer L. Scshiff, $20,000, I
Jacob Wertheim, $20,0'00.
Jacob Wimpfhemer, $20,000.
Mr. and   Mrs.' Samuel   Sachs,
$20,000.
Mr, and Mrs. Harry Sachs and
Mi*,   and   Mrs.  Samuel  Sachs,
$20,000.   ¦ .      ;'
Louis Marshall, $12,000.
Mrs. Felix M. Warburg, $10,000.
William Salomon, $10,000,
Mr. and Mrs. R. Sadowsky, $10,-
000.
S. G. Rosenbaum, $10,000.
Mrs. S. C. Lamport and Mrs.
Max Weinstein; $10,00(i. Dr. Julius Golden, $10,000.
Aaron E. I^ussbaum,~;|i^v4)0^. Samuel C. Lamport, $10,000.
HOW CAN SYNAGOGUES SUCCEED?
FOREIGN NEWS
A group of prominent liberal Rumanian statesmen, have agreed toi introduce and press to passage a bill for the complete emancipation of all Jews born in Rumania. The Treaty of Buch¬ arest with the central powers, virhich was abrogated by the terms of the armistice of Nov. 11, provided for the emancipa¬ tion of-Jews born in Rumania of parents born in Rumania. This would have excluded thousands of Jews.
The Czecho-Slovak Govern¬ ment has issued an erecutive or¬ der requiring all Galician Jews to leave Bohemia. The great ihajority of the Jews affected were war refugees who had fled from their homes during the, Russian invasions and had been placed in concentration camps.
German Jewish communal leaders have received from the well-known millionaire, Rath- enau, a fund of 20,000,000 marks for Jewish community uses. Rathenau is a director of the General Electric Company of Germany: It is believed that in making this gift Rathenau has disposed of practically his entire fortune.
On October 29 the corner¬ stone for the new Synagog Ohel Rachel, atxSl^ghai, China, was laid. The syHa^ogWas endow¬ ed by Sir Jacob Sasdoon, Bart., of Bombay, India,W memory of his wife. .
The Jewish National Council of Vienna chailges that the Pol¬ ish commandant of Frzymesl, Lieutenant-Colonel Tokarewski, has demanded from the Jewish population payment of 3,000,000 kronen, and threatens that un¬ less this pioney is forthcoming shortly he will order his troops to ransack all the Jewish homes of the town and take the money by force.
The Columbus Jewish Chron¬ icle is in receipt of the following letter from the headquarters of the Students' Army Training Corps at the Ohio State Univer¬ sity, and which' it is requested to publish: Dear Sirs:
1. Arrangements have been completed whereby a settlement for final pay due men discharged from S. A. T, C, Ohio State Uni¬ versity, will be made without further delay, with a view to eliminating any misunderstand¬ ing that may now exist it is re¬ quested that the following in¬ structions be published for ,the benefit of all concerned.
2. All men discharged from S. A. T. C, Ohio State Univer¬ sity," Columbus, Ohio, who have not received final payment upon discharge will mail their final statements in duplicate together with discharge certificates, to the Quartermaster, S. A. T. C, Ohio State University, Colum¬ bus, Ohio, for settlement. The discharge certificate will be re¬ turned with check for amount due on final. The foregoing ap¬ plies to all men residing outside of Columbus.
- 3. Men living in Columbus may mail their final statement or present same in^ person as above at their option.
4, Final statements which have been transferred to banks as outlined in paragraph 8 of in¬ structions on back, will be mailed by such banks direct to the Quartermaster S. A. T. C, Ohio State Uni-yersity, Columbus, O., for- payment.
5., Any final statements left with banks for collection and not regularly transferred, will be paid-by chedk drawn to the- order of the man and mailed to the bank for delivery. In such cases it is requested that dis¬ charge be forwarded if practi¬ cable. All final statements must be submitted in duplicate.'
6. It is believed that the abqve instructions if followed will eliminate further corre¬ spondence and insure prompt paymient to all men.
By direction bf Major Oliver. Jay M. Cunningham, Captain, Infantry, U. S. Army, Adjutant.
By Rabbi Jacob Klein
CODE OF HONORABLE
NAMES
One of .ithe results of the cam¬ paign of Americanization among boys may be the elimination from the vocabulary of many young Americans of too fre¬ quently used epithets designat¬ ing scornfully the foreign-bom and their children.
In his efforts to eliminate these undemocratic terms of re¬ proach, Dr, P. P. Claxton, Com¬ missioner of Education, - has caused a "Code of Honorable Names" to be circulated among boys' clubs, boys' magazines and to be put up in places where the younger generation may see theni and which reads as fol¬ lows:
My name for every true man in these United States will be the honorable name of "Ameri¬ can."
My purpose shall be to dis¬ courage in the native born the love for titles, to help every im¬ migrant to forget his hyphen and be proud of the name Amer¬ ican and to stamp out the use of such nicknames as words of de¬ rision of the foreign-born,
We pledge our service never to use, and to discourage every¬ where, the use of such words as Dago, Dutchy^ Froggy, Ginny, Greaser, Heiiiy, Horwat, Hunky, Kike, Mick, Paddy, Sheeny, Spa¬ ghetti, Wop, as applied to any foreign-bom resident pf the United States of America.
There are many instances of false successes in social, com¬ mercial and financial life, which lead to disastrous failure. Suc¬ cess is not a question of accum- lation or glitter; it rests on char¬ acter alone, and the test is not size, but genuineness.
Now, how can a synagogue succeed? What are the condi¬ tions of success for the Jewish congregation? And what are the tests—is is size, show, repu¬ tation, or is it reality and char¬ acter?
The first condition must be the religious spirit, whatever name be given to it.   If an art society be formed, its members must necessarily have a taste for art and fair knowledge of pictures. If a musical organization be ef¬ fected, surely its members must have a love for music and some fair attainment in that sphere. So   if   a   synagogue   is to be formed,   its   members are. pre¬ sumed to have or to desire to have a religious spirit in its best meaning.   That   is   imperative. Otherwise you have caricature, not character.   The second con¬ dition must be conviction—^there must be the conviction that the congregation, and its aims are the best in the world for each worshipper.   It is less necessary to   possess   conviction than .to have conviction possess us. Some people   mistake   prejudice   for principle.   The difference is that of   ignorance   and   knowledge. Principles are based on convic¬ tions. In other words, men must first learn before they know, and the   wider   and   better   their knowledge the fewer their pre¬ judices and the stronger their convictions.   Imperfect   mortar means faulty buildings, and pre^^' judices   rather, than  principle, tend towards destruction in con- greations.
The third condition neces¬ sarily follows—^there must be aim, tendency, character, color¬ ing. A' congregation must fol¬ low the headlight and in one di¬ rection. If the separate cars in a train were to follow each indiv¬ idual bent, you would have no progress, but disaster. It mat¬ ters little if a synagogue be modern or old-fashioned, if it only is what it claims to be and does not pretend to walk in the twentieth century when it is limping in the eighteenth. In other words, it must stand for something, not everything, or it will amount to nothing. There must be consistency.
The fourth condition is unity. It must have one common aim and impulse, and be s^yayed by one common spirit.  That means unity and harmony.   Each must sink   the   individual   different for   the   good  of   all   and  be quick to make concessions for the general welfare.    It is no man's temple, but God's teihple. The    synagogue    has    always been democratic,   the poor man must   not   feel thrust to the wall, and the man of means must be   generous.. Unity  promotes peace, disharmony—dissatisfac¬ tion and rupture.   The greatest unity , comes  from having one leader, not many bosses.    And the more the rabbi is revered as leader,   the   more   unity   and strength there is, and if he has not the qualifications his power is nil.  This does not imply that the rabbi must be an autocrat or a pope.   But no self-respecting rabbi wil lallow himself to be re¬ garded as a figurehead.   He is captain of the   ship,   not   the scullion.
If these are some of the es¬ sential conditions there are oth¬ ers that are not to be disregard¬ ed. The synagogue must be so administered as to win the love
of itB^ people, and the esteem of the community at large. Its rit¬ ual must appeal to the worship¬ pers, express their convictions, satisfy their wants, and be in harmony with their daily lives. Bread baked in Pompeii is not nourishing, today; and the syna¬ gogue must be a living force, not a reminiscence or a cemetery.
It must attract the young, in¬ spire reverence for our older faith, and train the leaders of coming decades. Its attitude toward other creeds must be kindly; it must preach peace and brotherhood, not rancor and nar¬ rowness. But above everything else, its highest,aim must be to rouse its people to fitting ac¬ tivity, and make them pure in character,'useful in life, noble in aspiration.
JEWS AND POLES
Although   the   Jewish   com¬ munal eleotiohs have taken place throughout Poland, with the ex¬ ception of Warsaw and Lodz, the Council of the Jewish Commun¬ ity of Warsaw, whose tenure of office has long expired, has, un¬ der the pressure exercised by the Polish   Government,'  postponed the elections that should have taken place on October 16 last to a date to be fixed by the Polish governihent.   According   to in-, formation received by the Zion¬ ist Organiation of America this gross interference of the Polish authorities in the purely internal affairs of Warsaw Jewry is.an t^ct   of  oppression designed to prevent the largest Jewish com¬ munity in Europe from taking an energetic part in the struggle for Jewish national rights. Great anxiety naturally prevails among the Jewish  population  of the, country.
TThe   authorities   in   Galicia have prohibited the holding of all Jewish meetings that had been convened for the purpose . of formulating Jewish demaiids. The prohibition is the-result of the instigation of the Poles, as the   relative   strength   of ' the' Poles and the Ukrainians would undergo a change to the detri¬ ment of the Poles if the Jewish population received the right of, self - determination.   A   similar prohibition   has    been    issued throughout Poland against Jew¬ ish meetings  in  which rights should be demanded for the Jew¬ ish nation according to the prin¬ ciple of self-determination.
AMERICAN JEWISH
FARMERS APPROVE DECISION OF ALLIES
The tenth annual convention of the Federation of Jewish Farmers of AmericaTwhich was held at.the Educational Alliance, early in December, adopted the following resolution:
"Whereas, The British and allied governments have de¬ clared themselves in sympathy of establishing a homeland for the Jewish people; be it there¬ fore .
"Resolved, That the delegates of the Federation of Jewish Farmers at their tenth annual convention assembled, express their pleasure at the decision ar¬ rived at by these governments allied for the cause of democ¬ racy, and we trust that those of us who will settle in the land of bur forefathers will be success¬ ful in the owning and tilling of the soil."