Dear Sir: Do not be surprised to receive this letter from me. Above all, do not be frightened. I am not as dreadful as I am portrayed. My purpose in writing is to thank you for your articles in the Jewish Courier, particularly for giving me space and publicity in your issues of January 12, and June 9 and 29 of this year. I think we might arrange to meet, to give you an opportunity to prove your accusations.

I read those articles, but I would be ashamed to write as many lies, condemnations and curses as you heap upon me in your paper. It would be beneath my dignity to feel insulted. An old Rumanian adage states: "Every king has a dog that barks."

You attacked me because the publications of the Polish National Alliance, of which I have the honor of being a director, pointed out the ingratitude of the Jews to a Poland which had accepted and sheltered them, when they were being driven from all other parts of the world. Do you think that, even if I 2were not a director of the Polish National Alliance, their organ would not stoutly defend the honor of the Polish nation?

I have children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and other kin in Poland. Do you think, in your obstinacy, that I am less interested in the fate of my children than you are in the fate of persons with whom you have only racial connections?

The attitude of the Polish press, which displeases you most, is a movement of self-defense, which, to a certain extent, can be compared to the parades and mass meetings which Jews here in the United States have organized, to the petitions sent to Congress, and to the insolent dispatches paid for by Germany, that cast a shadow upon Poland.

But I would like to be enlightened on this point: What benefits can Jews derive from condemning the Poles?

Do you think that slinging mud at Poland, which supports over two and a half 3million Jews, will injure Poland? Considering the struggle of the Polish people, for two hundred years, for freedom--a struggle which brought Poland glory and power--such attacks cannot possibly injure her.

Of more importance is the certainty that, by condemning Poland, you cannot maintain the good will of the Poles for the Jew. What is it that you and your associates seek to gain for Israel from the increasing bitterness and the insults which you justify by dishonorable attacks on Poland's honor?

Why didn't you condemn the Ukrainians who murdered more Jews in the city of Proskurov, in one week, than the Poles have killed during the 600 years since the Jews settled among them? Two and a half million Jews live in Poland. Will the cries of your, or any other Jewish newspapers help them?

I stubbornly maintain that there were no religious or racial pogroms in Poland. Those who suffered at the hands of a hungry and desperate population were the profiteers and food monopolists, regardless of race--Christian and Jew, as well as the Bolsheviks of Wilno and Pinsk.

I put more faith in the public statements made by Jews like Maiman Ashkenazi, the famous historian in Lemberg, Louis Silverstein, professor of mathematics at the Royal University of Rome, Dr. Henry Nussbaum, a son of the greatest Jewish historian, Dr. Leiberman, a socialist deputy, who is very popular among the Jewish working class, and other persons like them, than in your delegates who were sent to Poland. They are Lithuanian Jews.

Lithuanian Jews were actually the greatest misfortune that ever befell the Polish Jews, because it was the Lithuanian Jews who provoked racial hatred in Poland and in Russia, and they were the propagandists of bolshevism and anarchism, which philosophies should and must be suppressed no matter where they may originate. That Lithuanian Jews were the chief instigators of bolshevism and anarchism, I believe even you will not dare to deny. Trotsky heads them.

Not so long ago, our own Federal officials in New York refused postal rights to a Jewish newspaper. Recently, in Life, I read the statement that "although not every Jew is a Bolshevik, nevertheless every Bolshevik is a Jew." In Chicago, I have frequently seen movies of Bolsheviks. Every Bolshevik is 5portrayed as a typical Jew.

I cannot understand why the Jews of this country, and I mean the Americanized and influential Jews, have not understood the interests of their coreligionists in Poland. It is obvious that a subtle hand leads them, undoubtedly a German hand, since they fail to notice that by their newspaper attacks on the Poles, and by the work of their committees in Paris, they will, without question, bring destruction to two and a half million Jews in Poland; besides, anti-Semitism is very contagious.

Anti-Semitism originated in Germany. Bismarck created it. After a while, it spread all over Europe. Some lawsuits against Jews, based on alleged blood-ritual murders, took place in Russia, Hungary, Bohemia and Austria. Such lawsuits have never occurred in Poland, even though Jews have lived there longer than elsewhere.

In the Austrian parliament, an official anti-Semitic party existed, under the leadership of Lueger, the mayor of Vienna; while in France, a purely anti-Semitic 6trial took place: the Dreyfuss Case. But nothing of the kind has occurred in Poland, where Jews are more secure than elsewhere. Are these facts not sufficient proof that Jews have never suffered religious persecutions in Poland?

If American Jews would simply throw off their sympathy for Germany, the founders of anti-Semitism, I am convinced that in the interests of the Jews in Poland, they would seek a friendly and sympathetic relationship with the Poles, and would bend every effort to make Poland a stronger state, since nowhere have Jews lived as well as in Poland, nor found as good a home.

In closing, I wish to suggest to you and your associates of the Jewish race, both here and in Poland, that, in the interests of Judaism, you should drop these unmerited attacks upon the Poles, and instead, devote all your energies to the task of eradicating Jewish Bolsheviks wherever they are, in Russia, in Poland, and most important of all, in the United States.

Will you have enough courage to print this letter, word for word, in your paper?

Since you advertise me as a "shameful traitor," justice demands that I, the accused, be heard, before any sentence passed may be a fair one.

N. K. Zlotnitski.

[Editor's note: Dr. Melamed's answer to Mr. Zlotnitski is printed in the same issue, and is coded under III H.]