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In War and Peace
( Con tinned from page 28)
inunity. Although a number of
societies retain the name Y. M.
H. A., Y. W. H. A. or kindred titles,
for reasons of tradition, or pro
visions in their corporate charters,
they function with very few excep
tions as Jewish community centers
for men and women, boys and girls.
The renter is not merely another
Jewish institution in the com
munity, but rather a centralizing
agency through which the entire
Jewish community may express
itself culturally.
1 ndcr t lie* leadership of the
J. \Y. 11. the movement has ex
panded tremendously. Today there
are Ids organizations affiliated with
the Hoard, with a membership of
.‘150.000 adults, young men and
women, boys and girls. Buildings
are owned by 220 associations, with
an investment of $82,000,000. Over
175 centers are under the direction
of professional staffs, with a pro
fessional personnel of many hun
dreds. Annual expenditures amount
t<> well over Jj*4,(HK),000.
Mere figures, however, cannot
indicate the extent to which the
Jewish community center move
ment has impressed itself upon tin*
American Jewish scene. 'There is
hardly a city or town with Jewish
residents that does not have one.
The center has come to Ik* regarded
as necessary to Jewish living in the
community. It provides for the
leisure of young and old, for the
meetings and activities of all types
of Jewish groups, for Jewish educa
tion of the children and frequently
for religious observance as well.
The center is for many the first
contact with Jewish interests and
the place for Jewish association.
It cultivates among tin* young
a sense of responsibility to the
community and to things Jewish.
Its manifold activities make for
enrichment of personality and the
development of qualities of leader
ship. The Jewish center, American
in origin and faithful to American
ideals, has succeeded also in trans
mitting Jewish knowledge and an
appreciation of historic Jewish
values.
That the center movement has
won the loyalty of the Jewish
people whom it serves is attested
to by the fact that throughout the
period of economic distress from
which we are now emerging, the
center has everywhere been sup
ported wholeheartedly and with a
most remarkable demonstration of
genuine appreciation of its value.
The confidence of Jewish communi
ties in the fundamentally useful
and constructive work of tin* center,
in its positive Jewish philosophy
and program, has encouraged them
to look to tin* center for effective
leadership in the larger area of
Jewish communal life and organiza
tion. In the center, people of vary
ing opinions and interests have
learned to work together for com
mon purposes and the experience
thus gained is increasingly being
utilized in the solution of other
communal problems and the build
ing up of a comprehensive program
of communal activity. The center
has indeed never assumed that its
activities should be confined to the
program that could be carried out
in the four walls of its structure.
It viewed the whole Jewish com
munity as its field of useful service
and it is only natural that people
should turn to this proven and
tried instrumentality to point the
way to a better ordered plan of
communal organization.
(Copyright 1931 for The Southern Israelite)
Rehearsal For Revolt
( on (in ued from page 29)
will have been destroyed by that
time. The fatal blow, though pre-
cedented some dozens of times in
the course of Jewish history, caught
it totally unprepared and unpro
tected. The six hundred thousand
Jews of Germany had no group
consciousness whatsoever. They
were a creed, not unlike some old
Protestant creed. Socialists and
Zionists were puny minorities. The
pride and very life of German Jews
rested on their century-old identifi
cation with the German national
entity, of which they felt themselves
integrally a part; on their loyalty
to their country, their love of their
German homeland, their contribu
tions to and enjoyment of German
cultural values. German Jewry had
produced particularly many out
standing individuals who rose above
the mass like an aristocracy and
whom every foreigner met when he
entered into the social life of the
larger German cities. And if hunger
and fear of expulsion and bloody
pogroms inflict particularly cruel
physical pain on the Jews living in
villages and small towns, these other
suffer even more keenly from the
contempt and degradation and
abuse in which the refined sadism
of the more sophistacted priests
of Nazism finds its expression.
These people can no longer laugh at
the suggestion that they choose their
housemaids with a view to their
seduction—a notion worthy of a
medieval provincial brain. For
them the most distressing thing of
all is the mountain of lies that is
rising in “their own” Germany and
burying them under its masses of
filth.
A syndicate of Aryan racketeers
in Berlin is offering to provide Ger
man Jews with official documents
proving their Aryan descent back
to 1800 for a mere 250,000 marks.
Barnwell Brothers,
Inc.
in ISLINGTON, N. <:.
Telephones 1306-07-08-09
Fast, Dependable, Reliable
Daily Motor Freight Service
with a Fleet of ( Hosed Vans Between the
Textile South and Northern Markets.
ALL CARGOES AMPLY INSURED
NKW YOHK OFFICE
MR. WILLIAM It. LACY
PHILADELPHIA DRAYAGE & EXPRESS
1040 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, Pa.
THE TRANSPORTATION, INC.
Atlanta, Ga.
Greenville, S. C.
MAGNET MILLS
Incorporated
LADIES
MENS'
/ Full Fashioned
and
Needle Seamless
Needle
Seamless
HOSIERY
HOSIERY
MILLS IN CLINTON, TENNESSEE
* the SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
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