The resignation of Al Jolson, famous Broadway comedian, from membership in the Westchester Biltmore Country Club at Rye, N.Y., is quite a bit of first-class American Jewish “social news.” Al Jolson, the son of a cantor, has never made any secret of his Jewish origin and faith. He could not, out of respect to himself, his friend and his people, remain any longer a member of the exclusive country club, which reprimanded him for bringing undesirable guests to the club, referring to Harry Richman, nightclub entertainer and proprietor, whom Mr. Jolson had brought to the Club as his guest.
“If you want it straight, I’ll tell you. Mr. Richman is undesirable for the simple reason that he is a Jew,” Mr. Jolson was told by the manager of the club when he asked the reason for the objection to Mr. Richman. On asking whether it was not known that he, too, was a Jew, Jolson was told, “Of course, but you are an exception.”
“You are an exception” has been the mask under which rabid anti-Semitism sailed everywhere. Self-respecting Jews everywhere have always refused to be accepted as an exception. This “social event,” in itself insignificant as it may be, carries a lesson to many of our golf-playing co-religionists. It also should be a reminder to those who look to Great Britain for standards and comparison.
This American Jewish “social event” coincides with the conferring upon the former Mr. Isaac Rufus and the former Alice Cohen of the title of Marquis and Marquise of Reading. The Court of St. James and the British Nordic aristocracy do not treat outstanding Jews as “exceptions.”
They could, if they sought, also find standards here. As the New York $6,000,000 drive of the United Jewish Campaign is nearing its successful conclusion, along comes John D. Rockefeller, Jr., with a $100,000 contribution “for the relief of the Jewish people in Poland and Russia.”
Are there many of these exclusive country-club members who would applaud John D. Rockefeller when he says [the following] in the letter accompanying the gift?
“In a matter of this kind, there ought to be no barriers of race or creed. Therefore, although my participation in the movement has not been solicited, I hope you will allow me to enclose herewith my check for $100,000 toward the fund, which I do with the best wishes for the successful consummation of the campaign.”
Many throughout the country will no doubt applaud the decision of the National Conference on Jewish Culture and Education which was called the Zionist Organization of America. The conference, which formed the association for Jewish Education and Culture, has succeeded in eliminating from its program those edges which would be most likely to create friction on the question of Jewish education.
In addition to its purely Zionist activities, of which the new Association makes no secret, it also intends, according to its program, to encourage Jewish educational work on a larger scale, on the need of which there seems to be no division.
There can be no objection to “fostering in American Jewish life an appreciation of Jewish cultural values; to create a better understanding of Jewish traditions and aspirations; and the cultivation and dissemination of the Hebrew language and literature.”
The fears entertained by those who are interested in religious education, in the various Sunday schools and Talmud Torahs, either of Orthodox or reform, were allayed by the fact that direct interference in the work of the various religious and educational institutions will not be attempted by the new association.
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