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The Southern Israelite
Passing My Window
By PIERRE VAN PAASSEN
From his vantage post in
Paris, Pierre Van Paasscn, one
of the outstanding newspaper
correspondents in the world, and
tri-weekly contributor to the col
umn "World’s Window" in the
Hew York livening World, com
ments in his own inimitable way
on Jewish events and personali
ties in his incisive column “Pass
ing My Window."—The Editor.
Gun-Running in Palestine
The London Morning Post correspond
ent who recently visited Palestine reports
that gun-smuggling is on the increase.
Me sees in this an indication that further
trouble must be expected, “probably in
June." Where arc all those guns com
ing from? And who is doing the smug
gling? In the first place Lord Allcn-
hy’s army, it should be recalled, brought
huge stores of rifles and ammunition
to the Near East. Then Colonel Law
rence had an allowance from the War
Office of fifty thousand pounds ster
ling a day, some say it was a hundred
thousand. This fund was used to teach
the Arabs and the Bedus the arts of
civilization, which consisted at times in
blowing up railway tracks, destroying
depots and cutting the throats of Britain’s
enemies. The Arab is like a little boy in
this respect that he likes to carry a gun,
two guns if possible. One he may have
obtained from the money Colonel Law
rence gave him, and the other he acquired
from the piles of guns which General
Allenby’s quartermasters left accommo
datingly behind in the desert. In addi
tion he picked up a revolver or set of
daggers thrown away by the retreating
Turks, and so he is fitted out. What
ever else he has in the line of hard
ware or cutlery is safely stored away
for just such a time as this when his
brethren in Palestine think they may
need them for a new Saint Bartholemew.
Now the British Border police on the
Jordan is hopelessly inadequate. There
are gaps, miles in width, through which
smugglers pass up and down unmolested.
The Trans-Jordan Arabs who arc the
secret guardians of the old Allenby stores
and the hoarders of the Turkish arma
ment loot are simply siposing of surplus
stock. There is peace now between I bn
Saoud and Feisal, so where else can they
go with their wares? Palestine is the
answer. Then there is gun smuggling
on the coast, North of Haifa. This I
know of personal experience. An Arab
merchant of Haifa imported 5,(KX) rifles
in October. They came from Italy. They
were landed under the noses of the
British Tommies, police, marines, air
force and gendarmerie. Everybody in
Haifa knew the guns were coming.
Everybody knew they had arrived. I saw
the entire stock one evening. The Arab
merchant was inviting some friends to
see his imports. “Against whom are
these rifles to be used?" I asked. “Well”,
he replied, “I am selling to the highest
bidder. If the Jews will pay more than
the Arabs, they can have them all.”
The Jews didn’t buy.
Dreyfus Affair Revives
All at once the Dreyfus affair flares
up again in Paris. Maitrre Henri
Torres, the lawyer who defended Chaim
Schwartzbart, has translated a German
play based upon the trial, conviction and
subsequent rehabilitation of the Jewish
artillery captain and wants to produce it
in France. Dreyfus docs not appear in
the play at all, only his defender Labori
and Zola and Clcmenccau and Scheurer-
Kerstner and Piquart. But Maitre Tor
res had figured without the sleeping lions
I)R. M. WERTHEIMER, well-known
German journalist, has been appointed by
the German government as its represent
ative in the Public Relations Bureau of
the League of Nations at Geneva. Criti
cism has been leveled at the government
for the selection, because Wertheimer is
a Jew.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, in a
special introduction which he has written
for a Hebrew edition of “An Intelligent
Woman’s Guide to Socialism” which will
soon be published in Jerusalem, expresses
praise for Jewish women. “When the in
telligent woman is a daughter of Jerusa
lem,” the famous author says, “a non-
Jewish writer must be careful about try
ing to be her guide.”
FANNIE HURST, the novelist, and
Leonora Speyer, the poetess, are among
the eight women elected to membership in
the Author’s Club, founded many years
ago by Mark Twain as a retreat for men
authors only.
BERNARD JAFFE, Brooklyn Jewish
school teacher, has been awarded the $7,-
500 Francis Bacon prize in the national
contest sponsored by the Forum Maga
zine and Simon & Schuster to find the
best manuscript furthering the humaniz
ing of knowledge. Jaffc’s manuscript de
scribes the “heroism of the laboratory.”
MME. YVONNE NETTER, one of
the best known lawyers in France and
President of the Jewish Women’s Mutual
Aid Society, has received a bronze medal
for her social service work from the So
ciety for the Aid of Wounded Soldiers,
a semi-official French government insti
tution.
DR. ANNA R. BRUENN, dentist, has
filed complaint with the New York State
Board of Regents that she was barred
from a post as instructor in the New
York University College of Dentistry lie-
cause she is a Jewess. In reply to her
application for the position she was in
formed that “since it will require a Gen
tile it is not exactly suitable for you.”
MISS FREDA SLUTZKIN, a native
Australian who came to Palestine about
six years ago, has been admitted to the
bar in Jerusalem. She is the second wom
an to be permitted to practice law in Pal
estine.
MAURICE SAMUEL, the novelist,
essayist and orator, is a Palestinian citi
zen six months out of every year.
DANIEL FROHMAN has been elec
ted President of the Actors’ Fund of
America for the 26th consecutive term.
RICARDO CORTEZ and Alma Reu
bens, who were for many years the hap-
of the Action Francaise, and the anti-
Semitic league. They are up in arms.
They howl and scream as wildly as thirty
years ago. “Dreyfus the Traitor” “Drey
fus the Jew”. Leon Daudet and Charles
Maurras think they have found a new
peg to hang an anti-Jewish movement on.
But the French public remains cool and
indifferent. The pamphlets hastily writ-
piest Jewish couple in screendom, recently
separated becaused Alma became angry
at Ricardo (formerly Jacob), who in
sisted that it was his influence which had
saved her from the drug habit.
SIDNEY FISHMAN, a young art
student, was the only Jew to receive a
Pulitzer Prize this year. He received the
annual $1,800 scholarship awarded to the
art student in America who shall be cer
tified as the most promising and deserv
ing by the National Academy of Design.
He expects to continue his studies in art
schools in Paris and other European
cities.
MAX DOLIN has been named con
ductor of the San Francisco Philhar
monic Orchestra. Born in Odessa in
1883, Dolin obtained his musical edu
cation at the Imperial Conservatory.
In recent years he has been musical
director for the Pacific Division of
the National Broadcasting Company.
11 AN AH COHEN, well known com
munal worker in London, has been
selected to head the Jewish Board of
Guardians powerful philanthropic con
stitution. This is the first time in the
history of Jewish communal institu
tions in England that a woman has
been chosen to head one of them.
MME. VERA JABOLFAVA, only
woman in the Russian Cabinet, holds
the post of Comptroller of Finance of
the U. S. S. R. Mine. Jabolewa is a
Jewess.
POLICE MAGISTRATE JACOB
COHEN, the only Jewish Magistrate
in Canada, died in his eighty-sixth
year. He had occupied his position on
the bench since 1918.
LOUIS WOLHEIM, the great foot
ball player who later became an eco
nomics instructor, only to make a suc
cess of it on the stage finally, made his
first big hit in “What Price Glory,”
where he was supposed to represent
the typical American soldier. Now
Wolheim is giving another sterling
performance in “All Quiet on the
Western Front,” where he plays the
part of Katzczinsky, the typical Ger
man soldier.
BILL SHATOFF, who twenty years
ago came to America from Russia with
$2 in his pocket, recently finished the
Turkestan-Siberian Railway which cost
$80,000,000. Since he went back to Rus
sia he has been chief of police of Len
ingrad and the treaty-maker who
signed the compact with Japan in 1921.
(Continued on Page 15)
ten and printed by the Action Francaise
clique, with such titles as ‘ Proof oi
Dreyfus’ Guilt” and “Dreyfus who Es
capcd Punishment” are remaining unsold
At Clemenceau’s funeral a fellow m
front of me said to his companion:
“Tiens, there’s Dreyfus!" “Which Drey'
fus?” asked the other. “The banker?"
“No the captain!” came back the first
“Ah you mean the fellow who wanted to
force the army to go to mass!’’ The
younger generation knows not Dreyfus
The Jews of Hungary
Under the heading: “The Jews oi
Budapest are dying out”, the Vienne
Neue Freie Presse prints a grave warn
ing from the Chief Rabbi of Hungary
Dr. Simon Hevesi, in which that gentle
man cites facts and figures which show
that an increasing number of Hungarian
Jews arc seeking baptism and turning to
the Roman Catholic Church. Dr. Hevesi
refers to this phenomenon as “a wave of
Jewish self-destruction”. In addition to
Baptism, many Jews in that country are
losing contact with their brethren
through mixed marriages. The Jewish
birth-rate is also falling off. Some
European Jewish writers angrily protest
against this decline of Jewish race-
vitality and endurance. They point out
that there is at present no such inexor
able pressure being brought to bear upon
the Hungarian Jewry as that which was
suffered by other Jewries in other times.
With the exception of a few so-called
hoodlum outbreaks, the convenient sub
terfuge with which East European gov
ernments describe anti-semitic excesses.
Hungarian Jewry is not so badly off, if
we are to credit these protesting writers.
Why then this “defaillance” ? they ask
It seems to be forgotten already that
Hungary, less than a dozen years ago.
went through a period of upheaval and
disillusion following the war that came
close turning whatever remained of that
part of the dual empire into a shamble
But the Hungarians, the 100 percenters,
the awakening Magyars do not so easily
forget that the leaders of the Hungarian
Revolution were practically all Jews, Bela
Kuhn, the President of the Hungarian
Soviet Government was a Jew- and *
were the leading commissars; Tilx> r
Samuely, Joseph Pogany and Bela Bor >•
and the President of the Revolutionary
Tribunal, Eugene Lazio. They have been
reminding the Jewish community of un
gary constantly of these facts. Their re
minders took the form of pogroms
revenge raids on several occasions. ^
brute nationalism broke loose, it di ^
differentiate. It acted as if all the Jews
were responsible for the Bela Xu in ep
sode. And so the protest about the c X1
ence of a mild and benevolent
in Hungary holds no ground. The ' *
vik Revolution, to the contrary, has a -
initely been instrumental in enabIn
Semitism to catch a hold in Hu
the other hand, the Jews of Hunc.t
are turning to the baptismal font> 01
Church, will find no sanctuary
new’ religious affiliation. For t« ■
mal certificate has seldom spare-
Jews from violence when passion-
loose.
Copyright 1930. J- T. A.
♦ ♦
In The Limelight