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The Southern Israelite
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H. J. Redavats
County Commissioner
4th District
JACKSONVILLE FLORIDA
qA. T. c Bro f wn
COUNTY
COMMISSIONER
Second District
Jacksonville,
Florida
JOE F. HAMMOND
County
Commissioner
THIRD DISTRICT
JACKSONVILLE . . . FLORIDA
JOHN L. HALL
City
Tax
Assessor
Jacksonville, Fla.
MY VIEWS ON THE PRESENT
SITUATION IN RUSSIA
(Continued from Page B)
ficient efforts. But circumstances
and unfavorable environment and in
ternal suspicion and reaction checked
this movement and narrowed its in
fluence. Then to the masses Zionism
came and brought a buoyant hope
and a stimulating, life-sustaining
vision. To some, however, Zionism
either did not appeal deeply or it
seemed a mere palliative. For with
the outbreak of the Russian Revolu
tion, or even some time before, athe
ism, extreme, aggressive, virulent
and anti-Jewish began to manifest it
self upon a large and steadily in
creasing scale. It was the expres
sion of a rabid, resentful, destructive
hatred of everything that had char
acterized the old regime of oppres
sion, even of these very institutions
of that oppression, hatred of Judaism
and of Jewish separation of national
ism, and Zionism, of the Hebrew lan
guage and literature and of every
characteristic creation of Jewish life
and culture. It is, of course, fanati
cism, cruel, uncompromising, raging.
Yet there is no reason, just because
the Yevsek movement is ruthlessly
inimical to all the things which we
hold sacred and dear, and because we
must combat it relentlessly, and be
cause, too, its protagonists seem to
be actuated by fiendish and resentful
cruelty, that we should profess not to
understand what we may easily un
derstand, and to impute to them only
the lowest and most repellant of hu
man motives, cowardice, selfishness,
subserviency and a sadistic cruelty
and thirst for destruction. They are
Jews like ourselves, and the forces
which drive them forward, even
though along a strange and errant
path, must be much the same as those
which animate us, above all the hope
for a truer, richer life and happier
social adjustment. They represent a
movement in Judaism so extreme
that for the present we must admit
they have taken themselves com
pletely outside of Judaism. But the
pendulum will swing backward; it
always does, so history teaches, even
Jewish history, and that again and
again, and the first of Yevsek fanati
cism, too, will burn themselves out at
last.
Extremes are meeting today in
Russia, and especially extremes with
in Judaism there, the extremes of the
old, dignified, sanctified, but unpro
gressive orthodoxy, and of the new,
ultra-modern, intolerant Yevsek fa
naticism. If only conditions in Rus
sia had been normal for the last cen
turies, or even for the last century,
and Judaism had been permitted to
enjoy a natural growth and a steady
adaptation to modern life, knowledge
and culture, if only the reform move
ment, begun under the influence of
Haskala, had been allowed to work
itself out steadily and progressively,
this appalling Jewish tragedy, one of
the most sorrowful in all our tragic
history, would surely have been
averted.
And this suggests the only possible
eventual means of terminating the
tragedy, a true, reform movement
within the ranks of Russian Jewry.
I am pleading not for the introduc
tion of American Reform for Juda
ism into Russia. I am surprised that
even my bitterest and most vindictive
critics should have attributed such a
foolish, impossible thought and pur
pose to me. I ask them to believe
that this was the thing farthest from
my mind. I am pleading for a true
reform from within, a reform which
must be and will be the creation of
Russian Judaism and Russian Jewry
themselves, and which will bring
them completely abreast of the mod
ern world in all aspects of life and
thought and of religious, social and
economic theory and practice. The
extremes, so far apart at present,
must meet at last, through natural
growth, mutual understanding, ex
change of ideas and realization of
common fate, hope and purpose. A
healthy, creative, unifying reform
must come into the theories and prac
tice of both extremes. There is no
other solution of the problem; nor
will the laws of history and human
existence permit aught else.
Now what can we do to aid and ex
pedite this solution?
Here is one of the saddest parts of
the great tragedy that, eager to do
so much, we here in America cun ac
tually do so little. We are in the un
happy position of having to watch a
loved one, racked by a devastating,
torturing disease, suffer and writhe
in agony, ’frith naught that we can do
except to speak an occasional word
of cheer and guidance' and helpful
counsel, which may encourage the pa
tient to resist and to help himself as
much as possible. Shrieking aloud
and summoning the neighbors to
shriek with us will avail little, if any
thing.
The one concrete thing we can do
in this grave crisis is to provide, to
the utmost of our ability, the food
which the patient needs and can as
similate. We may not let him perish
for want of such nourishment. Trans
lated into practical terms and plain
language, this means that we must
labor and sacrifice to the utmost for
the economic well-being and rehabili
tation of our brethren in Russia, and
thereby also for the economic rehabil
itation and well-being of the Russian
people and nation. Religious fanati
cism and oppression cannot thrive in
the midst of economic prosperity.
That makes always for responsibility,
conservatism and steady, systematic,
constructive progress. Whenever eco-
haps if our American government
could be induced, even through Jew
ish persuasion, to recognize the Sov
iet government, and to bring to bear
upon it and its policies the influence
and pressure of a friendly power,
something, even much, might be ac
complished. It is indeed a counsel of
desperation; but has anything better
been proposed?
Meanwhile we stand upon the
threshold of the new Six Million Dol
lar Campaign of the Joint Distribu
tion Committee and the Jewish Agen
cy for Palestine. Through it we can
solve completely neither the Jewish
problem in Russia nor the Jewish
problem in Palestine. But through it
and through our generous support of
it, now and for all the years in which
this may be needed, we can contrib
ute mightily to the eventual solution
of these problems. That is the one
concrete, worthwhile thing we can do
now in the present crisis. But in it
we dare not fail. It calls for a united
front by a loyally united Israel.
John T.
Alsop, Jr.
M
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J AC
KSONVILLE
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GREETINGS;
WISHES;
Frank Brown
CIRCUIT
Duval County
JACKSONVILLE. FLA.