A NEW JEWISH PROBLEM

Hokitika Guardian, 6 December 1924, Page 4

A NEW JEWISH PROBLEM

I’RIDF OF THE RACE. 1 Laszici Schwartz in Sydney “Herald.”) Perhaps never before in the six-tliousand-yi*ar-old history of the Jewish race has it faced such a perplexing anil tragic problem as that set the best Jewish brains pondering since the Enited States of America produced an unprecedented array of Jewish criminals. Whether viewed from an economical, social or racial angle, ibis subject discloses some very interesting tacts. There are those* who bnisli aside the subject with the claim that the liinnielaiile representation of Jews among the criminals of the; Enited States merely proves that the Jew is no mure immune iruni the crime wave that lias swept over the world in the wake of the world war than the weaklings ol other races, "While.* this contention is well founded, yet it throws hut very little light cm this unusual subject, and it leaves untouched tin* roots of the “ cause and effect” in the ease. If we hear in 111 iin I that, according to Heine, the Jew usually gravitates towards extremes. rises very high, or sinks very low —this because nf the intensity of the race—then it would follow, |that this highly sensitive rare would read the more readily tn any crime waves that may sweep down upon humanity. Strange to say, such Inis not been the ease in the past. Let no one misconstrue this statement, I do not mean that tin* Jewish race has produced rrim.inals in other continental lands, fur in the study ol criminology will he found an ample number of these unfortunates. (In the other hand, it- is an historical fact, that as a lace the Jews have Molted civilisation with fewer c-ri mi nets tiled alin.isl :mv oilier civilised people. To quote but one example: In Hungary, where* a gonelly pnitiunot the population is ol Jewish extraction, though the country was one I limtsaml years old in 1 <‘:t’». yd up to that time on|\- one Jew was brought belure the courts and convicted lor murder. While all continental lands may not boast of a similar ti-eeird, yet in nolle of them has the* Jew swelled the list ol criminals in the proportion Imind among the men and women ol other races and religious deiiciininalions. DIMMED HALOS. This well-earned halo about, tin* "Chosen People" has been ennsidc’ialily dimmed of late, at least so far as the Enited States are concerned. To tolly apple. Lite tic 111 • c;; 111 111 -1 e and tragic- sign lien nee ol this new Jewish problem, it is Lest first to explode the false notion that it was the suddenness and great dimensions of the Jewish immigration to America that brought in its wake this racial and social ailment. While the rush of Jewish immigrants from the ghettos of Europe did create new problems in the Enil.ed States, il was not the magnitude of the exodus that sowed the seeds for the Jewish criminals of the future, lull it was tin- met hodless manner of these immigrants’ distribution that eventuallv produced an ever larger number of Jewish criminals.

It is not because there are a million Jews in New Volk city alone, but beeause the greatest purl ion cil this Jewish population on landing there is doomed to taste- the American brand of liberty with a bitter ghetto flavouring. Nay, it is not a flavour, but a poison. Tlie filth and foul air of New York’s ghetto has poisoned tin* bodies and minds of a great percentage of its dwellers, and lias choked beauty and nobility from the souls of hundreds of thousands of .lews, young and old. The greater tragedy not only to the Jews, lint to tlie Government of the I'nitcd States as well, when we consider that most of these Immigrants would have been moulded into just as excellent citizens as those Jews who were so fortunate as to make their start in the middle western of far west, eru States, where ghettos are unknown. MIASMA OF TIIK CIIKTTO. There are those who claim that the lower strata of the* Jewish race arc 1 happiest when living amidst the sordid surroundings of tlie ghetto. There is absolutely no foundation to such statements. The .lew did not <'lnni.se the ghetto, lie was heict'd and driven into it. Though in the ” Land of the* Free” this form of racial and religions persecution clues not exist, except in some fashionable hotels, clubs, colleges, and universities, ueverlheless, economically the poor Jewish immigrant was once again driven into the dark and fold lairs of the ghetto.

This morbid picture of New York's ghetto may nob harmonise with Mr Zangwill's “ Children of the Ghetto ” —his was the London ghetto—nor will it fit in with the saoiharined film versions of some ol New Aork ghetto stories: hut unfortunately it does rolled the tragic truth. It does reflect the indisputable fact that when the Government of the United States and the* civic powers of New York City allow the ghetto to grow to such dimensions. and sink to such depths, knowing or unknowing they sanctioned a noble race to build an incubator in which to hatch and raise the largest, and most depraved brood of criminals that the Jewish race lias ever heen shamed into claiming its own. It is all well to point to those who have .succeeded in crawling from the ghetto mire into safer and healtheir grounds, but what of the great majority who do not ? AVlmt of the thousands and thousands of children who are born and die in the ghetto, many of whom are recruited into gangs that ply their desperate and depraved trade as white slavers, crooks, dope dealers, and bootleggers? SHATTERED HOMELIKE. If the eastern Jews—Polish, Ron-

liiiinian, Galician, and Russian—who form the hullc of ghetto dwellers, would continue to live their more or less ideal orthodox homelife (the one that has preserved some of the finest traits of the race while abroad', then these criminal, social fungus growths would not thrive so profusely. Unfortunately such is not the case. In their mad blind rush for gold too inaiiy ol tile immigrants sacrifice the ideals of home, life in exchange for a pathetic and superficial sort of emancipation. It is a process in Amerieansintion which brings about radical internal, as well as external changes. According to the dictum of fashion plates, the external change is mainly for the better. According to the measure of true culture the internal 11-aus-foimation is usually for the worse. These are gloomy lacts that cannot lie overlooked, even though we admit that, hundreds of successtul men and women rise from the ghetto and join the ranks of the world’s greatest poets, merchants, artists, etc. ll anything, this fact Imt makes a more serious ease of it against any government that tolerates such inhuman conditions in tile herding of human beings, for it stands to reason that, if notwil listandiug fhe teriflic body and soul-grinding struggle, the ghetto dwellers give the nation .such a great percentage ol illustrious citizens, how much greater would their quota he without this handicap P

TIIK STUNK Ol' DKSTINY. Six Weather-beaten Hags, each clowned with a bronze wreath of laurel, hang limp ill the drizzle of an autumn day, heavy with the fumes of petrol Irom the passing traffic. Ilenoath the flags lie pathetic heaps of tattered (lowers—bookmarks lief. ween the leaves ol that unwritten history cl the war to he read in every Union's heart. Whitehall was paved for fifty yards with rubber blocks in the hope of silencing tile heat ol the trafiie past the Cenotaph, lint the plan was a failure, and again the scarlet ’buses, the impudent tiixis, fly past in discordant pro. cession. Vet, in tin- zone of the Cenotaph, no man is too hurried, none too careless, to hale his head as he goes by. Reach day new tributes Ircshen the store of (lowers—for the gaps left by the Dead are Kmpirc-wide. As evening falls, each wreath is spattered with mud or drifted with dust. Here is death in the midst of lift', lor here is the headstone of that great regimen! which claims the lives cl all and li vos for ever. A|| round, the business of the knipire goes on. Downing street is a lew yards away; Parliament at the end ol the ,-oad. Their very life is hv grace of the Deinl. Within a hundred yards wise heads are planning, under tlm grev-white cupolas ol the War Olficc. For the eventualities of future campaigns. Among the votive (lowers are great wreaths trom huge lirms, Irom toieign Powers, from institutions. It is not these that are the source of tears. A truer tale is told by tin* withered hunch ol wildllnwcrs. in torn brown paper, Itcaring a iMii-l-slaiocrl <*mvcl«*im*, om which a chilli’s had has written: “’ln my darling Daddy x x x" : or by the lading nosegay from a cottage gaidi o. with its ea-d: “To dim. Harry. Dick, ami Allan—from Mother.'’