To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:
Because, in seeking employment lately, I have developed an inferiority complex which practically deprives me of speech whenever I interview some representative of industry, I am using this method of appealing for a job of some sort.
I am an ex-service man, U. S. Navy, honorably discharged, a citizen and a voter. I am 29 years old.
I am able to do anything, even common manual labor. I am frantically desperate, don’t know where to turn. I’m in need of the so much publicized “New Deal.”
As I walk the streets in melancholy state of mind, occasionally listening to all kinds of speeches, political, economic and social, I am often asked for my humble opinion as to “who is to blame?” or “what should be done?”
Here I am in desperate need and chaotic state of mind and people ask me whether the government society or the capitalistic system is to blame. I cannot answer intelligently since all there is on my mind is the need to get a job.
Wherever I go to look for a job, the first question they fire at me is “What nationality are you?” And if I tell them I am an American, they just laugh at me. And if I should tell them I am a Jew, they simply and politely (in most cases) take my name and address and later merely throw it in the waste basket.
I am what I am. I am neither proud of it, nor ashamed of it.
Looking around I see some Jews who are self-made men, that is, successful in this country of equal opportunities. Some are still working to achieve that golden elusive diadem “wealth” or merely want a living. Some are, of course, as you will find in any other nationality, just plain trouble makers, that is, they are never satisfied. So going back to corner speeches, and listening in that abstract state of mind, I am often asked why I don’t become a communist or socialist or some other “ist.”
However, I fully realize that my salvation from starvation does not lie among those human apostles of hypocrisy and opportunism.
And that’s why I’m resorting to this form of appeal—to give me a break, and to save if possible a decent young man from becoming a human jackal.
I sincerely hope that this appeal will not go unheeded.
I remain yours truly,
H. J. Katz.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
