Whenever a Jewish leader advocates the cause of Jewish freedom or takes a manly attitude against Jewish persecution, not only our enemies, but even well-meaning Gentiles, who are not engaged in spreading hatred against our people, denounce it as Jewish propaganda. Whatever we do and say in defense of our downtrodden people in Eastern Europe is called Jewish propaganda. Whatever the anti-Semites say against us, the Gentiles very seldom consider as propaganda. We are supposed to conduct an insidious propaganda for all sorts of dubious if not sinister purposes. And Jewish propaganda is so much spoken of everywhere, that the outsider must really come to believe that the Jews have nothing else to do but to propagate certain movements, to advocate certain causes, and to be busily engaged in tricks and political maneuvers.

When Aaron Hoffman's comedy, "Welcome Stranger" was first produced in Chicago, a not too friendly critic called it Jewish propaganda. When a Jewish author publishes a book defending certain liberal movements, it is called Jewish propaganda. All those people who readily believe in Jewish propaganda do not consider the fact that the Jewish religion is the only one of the great historical religions, that does not demand from its adherents to make proselytes. This fact alone should go to indicate that Judaism as a whole takes a negative attitude to propaganda. The Jews have never propagated their religion among non-Jews and to the present day no conscientious Rabbi would so easily admit a Gentile to the covenant of Israel. We are not a proselyting people, because we are not imbued with an imperialistic spirit. Judaism has never striven to become a world religion. It is a religion of the Jewish people and for the Jewish people. There were times in history when Judaism had an opportunity to spread its doctrines and to impose it upon many nations, but it has failed to do it, because propaganda is strange to 3our minds.

The attitude of the most religious Jew to all other religions is that of liberality and benevolence and it will never enter his mind even to attempt to convince a non-Jew to give up his religion for the sake of Judaism. It is needless to say, that the Jewish liberals and freethinkers are not engaged in propaganda, and we are sorry to say that they often fail to do their share even in propagating the cause of their own oppressed and persecuted brethern.

How many Jews take an active interest in the Jewish people, its fate, and its future? There is always only a small group of Jews busily engaged in Jewish work. The masses of our people are very seldom alive to the situation with which our people is confronted, and if no pressure is brought to bear on them, to take some action, they would just leave things go and would not do a thing to remedy the situation. And even the leaders are often lukewarm in the Jewish activities and do not pursue them with the same energy and the 4same enthusiasm as the leaders of other nations do. Taking all this into consideration, one must admit that the so-called Jewish propaganda is only a fable, invented by the anti-Semites to confuse the mind of the masses, and nothing more. It is as malicious a fable as that of the Polish anti-Semites relative to the attitude of the Jews to Poland.

We can go further and say that the Jews do not only not propagate the cause of the Jewish people sufficiently, but that they do not even call the attention of humanity to facts known for the last three thousand years, but often forgotten by the nations of the earth, namely, that "Thou shalt love thy fellowmen as thyself," is not a command of Christianity, but of the Jewish religion, and is first to be found in the Old Testament, that the Jewish religion is the only one that takes a negative attitude to war, that Judaism is for permanent peace among nations, that Judaism, as a religion and as a system of ethics, is firmly opposed to economic and political oppression, and that Judaism is the only great historic religion defending and advocating the rights of the alien and 5the stranger. Our Rabbis, both Orthodox and Reformed, often speak of justice and righteousness while sermonizing, but very seldom point out the significance of Jewish ethics for the development of humanity. In short, even within the synagogue, the cause of Judaism is not sufficiently propagated, but still we are accused of being engaged in insidious propaganda for all kinds of dubious causes, especially for the cause of Jews and Judaism.