Scathing criticism of a recent editorial in the periodical Opinion is contained in a letter to its editor by Isidore D. Morrison, attorney and member of the American Jewish Committee. The editorial consisted of a bitter attack on the American Jewish Committee for publicly stating that the World Jewish Conference at Geneva in August was not truly representative of world Jewry.
The letter, a copy of which was forwarded to the Jewish Daily Bulletin by Mr. Morrison, follows in part:
“May I ask for the privilege of same space in your publication to comment upon the editorial ‘Cowardice Can Go No Further,’ that appeared in your issue of September, 1934,” the letter begins. “I am led to write to you, although I know that you are an organ of the American Jewish Congress, whose viewpoint you have been defending ever since your publication was launched. At the same time, I feel that no publication should be permitted to distort facts, to raise false issues, and to give a partisan color to Jewish events, without receiving even a modest challenge.
“You write in your editorial that it will be long before American Jewry will be able to forget ‘its (American Jewish Committee’s) wanton and malicious assault upon the Geneva Conference.’ I am wondering on what grounds you describe the statement issued by the American Jewish Committee as a wanton and malicious assault.
“It may be that to the editors of ‘Opinion’ a statement of fact is labeled as a wanton and malicious assault, but I can hardly believe that the American Jewish commu### despite all the thunder and confusion to which it has been subjected, will cheerfully object to having the truth told, or will consent to have the truth described in the terms you have chosen.
(The statement in question said that, since the American Jewish committee, the Board of Jewish Deputies of England and other important Jewish organizations were not represented at the Geneva conference, it could not “truthfully be described as representative.” The statement, it was explained, was issued as a result of “erroneous headlines and statements in some press reports” of the conference.—Ed).
“Had you submitted your partisan judgment to the light of logic and reality, you would not have dismissed as rhetorically as you have done ‘the absurd headline written in New York.’ You are, as a rule, aware of the importance of public opinion.
“The newspaper headlines which read ‘Jews’ Super-Government to Fight Race Oppression’ and ‘Jews to Set Up Super-Congress’ were not published in the Voelkische Beobachter, or in a Silver Shirt weekly. They appeared in a respectable American publication known for its liberalism and for its high sense of journalistic ethics.
“That such an impression should have been created is a piece of mischief that cannot be obscured by a red-herring attack on those who sought to undo that impression.
“The American Jewish Committee would, indeed, have laid itself open to a severe indictment if it had failed to point out that those who spoke of a Jewish parliament and who, despite the facts, claimed for themselves a representation and an authority they did not possess, were actually not representative of all the Jews.
“Because they stated this unchallengeable fact your editorial writer froths at the mouth. I dread to think of what your editorial implies:—that the Jewish public has so far forgotten its heritage as to prefer the mouthings and rantings of a Jewish Dr. Goebbels’ to a sober presentation of fact.
“In the same editorial, you attributed to the American Jewish Committee ‘No concern with the tragic implication of showing a divided and broken front to a common and advancing foe!’ Yet I am sure your vigilant editorial eye had not overlooked those parts of the reports on the conference that showed only too well that there were disunity and antagonisms at the conference itself.”
Mr. Morrison then quotes excerpts of United Press and International News Service reports to support the contention that there was considerable dissension among the conferees at Geneva.
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.
