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JEWISH LIFE IN RUSSIA
(Continued from page 10)
, n . Deeper causes were involved.
♦crent motives were behind that at-
3 tude.
It suddenly dawned on me that in
M*h milieus where my previous ex-
rrrience had led me to believe in a benev-
ilcnt receptiveness for any improvement
„ the life of Jews in that hell of pogroms
*hich was the Czarist Empire, there had
,rrn a growing attitude of niggardly
frpticism if not of militant hostility. I
, now ^peaking of the Zionists, with
jshom I shared joy and sorrows these
j;i«t ten years.
It cannot be denied that the slightest
Incident whereby a Jew or Jews stand to
(urfer in the USSR, an isolated act of
>nti-Semiti*m is seized upon by the gen-
fralit> of the Jewish press in America
h *h such precipitate alacrity that at times
t almost creates the impression of ela-
ion.
When Jews in the USSR became subject
L, new measures of social defense, along
^ith 170 million other citizens, as hap
pened last summer in the case of a pro
hibition to hoard foreign valuta or gold,
Ln eHort was made in the Jew iih-Amer
icas prr«s to interpret the incident aa a
bilfull act of anti-Jewish discrimination
tm the part of the Soviet authorities. The
irwith hell of Poland was forgotten for
[he moment. I just passed through Poland
Lnd 1 have seen what I have seen, and
hell is no exaggerated term for the bound
less misery and hopeless despair that
hrists among the Jews there. Even Hitler
at the height of his glory was relegated
|o the background as the chorus of in-
nignation arose from pulpit and press
against the Soviets. An event of com
paratively small significance was dressed
Lp in the garb of world importance.
I am leaving aside the venomous and
■ utile diatribes of ultra-nationalist Jews
like Mr. Jabotinsky, whose hatred of
Marxism does not yield an inch to that
fcf the Nazi barons in Berlin or to that
fcf those well-known philo-Semites of the
I /arUt general staff in Paris. It is with
lews who claim to have Jewish Weltansa-
Bauung, with Jews who are supposed to
■eel the joys and sorrows of their breth
ren as they feel their own that I con
cern myself. Periodically these sincere
■ nd sensitive souls arc set a-tremble by
Itew scares and alarms about the con
ditions of their brethren in Soviet Russia.
B he one day, it is said the Jews of
Russia are having their mail from Amer-
■ra pilfered. Next we hear that Jews
fcre being sent to Biro-Bidjan to be mas-
lacred in the event of a Japanese in
vasion of Siberia, when such an attack
■ ppeared on the point of coming off this
■ummer. Then again we are told that
■»e Jewish soul is being killed in Russia.
I I can perfectly well understand that
■ews are prone to be anxious about
Russia. Past experience excuses their sus
ceptibility and nervousness. But the past
Rves behind. A new day has come, also
■*'r the Jews of Russia. There is no
■ 7ar in Moscow now whose interest it
w to exploit national differences and
■anal antagonism. Human beings stand
■’ the helm of affairs in the USSR, men
■ d women to whom human life and
■ irnan dignity are the most sacred pos-
■rssjnn on earth. This is not the case in
R lr " Polish inferno or in the Rumanian
■haos.
I \ et always and again it is the Soviet
■ n ‘'»n that is being singled out. Fantas
ia , Ia * r ' ta l Cs K° the rounds in Jewish
Rrile s in America as to what has hap-
|tned to Zionists in the USSR. In a
■o owing article I will attempt to set
Rorth briefly the Communist-Zionist an-
■ ' ***** F°r the moment I will ask this:
Is it known what happens to Jewish
Communist girls in Eretz Israel? I
know. And I will tell you. They are
thrown into the foul jails of Tel Aviv
and Acre in rooms filled with Arab cut
throats and murderers. They are made
to wait there till a Rumanian freighter
or a Turkish trawler calls at the port
and then they are deported on those ships.
“I like to know what happens to these
bobbed-haired babies when they get on
the high seas with those Rumanian
sailors,” said a Jewish judge in Tel Aviv
after he had personally sentenced six
girls to imprisonment and deportation. I
will name that Jewish Zionist judge and
the witnesses who heard him say it, if
desired.
On this trip to Russia I saw Jewish
girls come back from Palestine in Odessa,
broken in body, after having passed
through the loathsome experience of the
dungeons of our Eretz Israel, and the
filthy cabins of Turkish ships.
In closing this introductory article on
mv recent experiences I will tell of an
incident which occurred a few weeks ago
after my return to Paris.
In a not distant issue of “Opinion”
Mr. Louis Lipaky virtually rejected the
Soviets’ efforts to crush anti-Semitism
by declaring that peasant greed would
always remain a serious menace to the
peaceful evolution of Jewish Coloniza
tion in the USSR. It wasn't three weeks
after I read this statement, which was
formerly a favorite argument of Mr.
Jabotinsky and may yet be so far as I
know, that I interviewed General Miller
in Paris, the Russian White Guard chief,
as I reported in a score of American
newspapers. The general said to me,
among other things, that he had positive
information that millions of ntoujiks
were boiling with envy and suppressed
rage over the privileges extended to
Jewish settlers in Krimea. Asked for a
more definite statement or for documen
tary evidence to substantiate this asser
tion, the general had his press chief hand
me a clipping sent out by the agency
“Argus de la Press,” which contained, I
grieve to say, the above mentioned re
mark by Mr. Lipsly in “Opinion.”
There is substantiation for you!
Copyrighted 1932 for 1»«r Socther* Israelite
WOMEN’S WEAR
(Continued from page 11)
distributes bonuses totaling $100,000.
Klein is not himself a religious man,
and his wide charities do not include
regular gifts to strictly racial organi
zations, but he appreciates his aged moth
er’s loyalty to the synagogue and he can
afford to indulge the sentiment.
He closes his store on Jewish holidays
at a loss, probably, of $75,000 a day. “It
please Momma,” he explains with a shrug.
Most of Klein’s hobbies are eminently
practical. He spends odd moments in in
vention of various sorts and has a number
of patents to his credit. He devised his
own system, a vastly intricate one, of
stock control, and it allows him to take
inventory twice each day, at the opening
and closing of the store, an unhead of
thing in a large business.
Cold figures are the best testimony to
this man's business achievement. Even
in pre-depression days, Klein stuck to the
bare bones of commerce. Fifth Avenue
stores must pay often one-tenth of their
gross income for rent; Klein’s occupancy
charge is three-fourths of one per cent.
The flossy store may turn over their
stock complete four times a year; Klein
turns over his thirty to forty-five times
a year.
He has almost no window space; he
has no deep carpets on his floors, and
shopping in his store is as brutal as run
ning the gauntlet.
But his overhead is less than six per
cent and that is why he can make money
on a ten per cent profit.
Quite unselfconsciously and quite au
tomatically, he has become a social force
in New York. His overwhelming pro
duction of cheap dresses has made it pos
sible for the merest shopgirl to give, at
least to the untutored eye, the appearance
of chic.
Someone told Klein recently that he
had made more girls happy than any
other man in New York. He wants to
believe it is true, and it probably is.
Last year he added to his possessions
a five-story annex. The furnishings in
the annex are better and the prices arc
a little higher; obviously the merchant
is planning to drum up trade in the
higher-income brackets.
Klein has made the poor folks happy,
perhaps he will do something for the
rich. Somebody ought to.
(Vipyrightrd 1932 for Tin Sot thus ImaiLite
Would Tax All Religious
Articles for Education
New York.—A resolution calling upon
the manufacturers of candles, matzohs
and all other products which might l>e
considered of a religious nature, to place
a stamp-tax on their goods, the proceeds
to go to Jewish education, was adopted at
a meeting of the Federation of Yeshivoth
and Talmud Torahs of New York. A
number of candle manufacturers, among
them the Standard Oil Company, have
already agreed to the plant, it was stated.
l*he matzoth makers, it was admitted,
have declined to levy such a tax. Several
speakers urged that the Federation go
into the matzoth business, if the matzoth
bakers refused to levy a stamp-tax for
educational purposes. On an estimated
consumption of 8,000,000 pounds of mat
zoth in New York annually, $80,000 would
be provided by a “torah tax” for Jewish
education, it was stated.
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