The Denver Jewish news., 1919-04-17
Peace Conference and
the Jewish Question
TIE THREE DIFFERENT PROB.
LENS WHICH WILL HAVE TO
BE SETTLED TO PROCURE JUS
TICE.
BY DIR. STEPHEN s. WISE.


Jew as was Disraeli is dominant in
its counscls-though Disraeli's service
to his people was one of good will
rather than of achievement. Self
rcvcring Jews such as the writer hold
it to be the happicst augury that the
attitude of the Peace Conference. to
the jew will be determined not by the
power of any outstanding Jewish per-
sonality but by the moral necessities
alike of the Jewish problem and the
professed purposes of the Conference
itself.
The Jews are ut one. the same time
more and less happily circumstanced.
row than in 1873. More happily i'll
that the world has in part because
of the war and the things for whicl.
the war was fought reached higher
levels of international principle and
practice than those which governed
The Bisma REX dominated procedure OF
1878! More happily because the do
minant powers of 1919 are not the
'tlLui NhNh- bcNau'S Va
the nimbus of the 1871 triumph, were
still in the ascendant. but the two
English-spcaking commonwealths and
The two Latin dcmocracics, which
brought to n triumphant close mems
supreme struggle for freedom.
Less happily. on the other hand. are
Jews circrmstanccd today because
Russia. land rather than home of hall
of the worlds Jcwry of yesterday.
IL gone for time in any event, and
because of its temporary, tho it must
not be permanent. decline. the great
Jcwry of Russia that was broken up
into series of Jewish fragments
which find it impossible to speak with
one voice. Less happily. yet again
because the centre of the worlds mn
rest Is that Eastern Europe which
includes nearly two-thirds of the Jew
ish people, so that it is tragedy upon
tragedy for the jew that he whose
homes and hearths We're oftcnrst
scourgetl by the r1ivages of German
Russian alterations of victory AMI
defeat. still finds himself at the cen
ire of a storm zone, which an infinite
aon,plexity of interim tionaY c,rcliri.
stance make, it all but impossible To
succor.
This 'hclplcsSness OF storm-swept
Eastern Jcwry means that the heaVi-
..t 81, hIr
Israel must he borne by the American
Jew. II Is good that the American
jew is able and ready to bear the
burden. as IL result of the growth moi
only of the Jewish community III
American life but of its deepening
consciousness of responsibility for the
Jewish status the world over. Amcri'
can Israel has risen to the high oc-
casion which summons 1t not merely
to give unstintedly of its material re-
sources, but of its capacity Tor leaa-
crship which the needs of "A generation
oc stress and turmoil have evoked from
out its life. Brandeis and Mack, ana
the Strauscs. Marshall. Elkrs, Frank
furter, are names that reprcscn. me
higher craftsmanship of the Jewish
people.
Last of all. and yet perhaps most
important of all, among the Happily
furthering circumstances of the J"w
in relation TO the Peace Conference
Is the truth that the most potent jew
ish community in the world today Is
n pnrt of that ration which is becinic
most potent in world councils ami
most eager to inuugurate the era OF
reparation to the Jew in the only
form in which the jew demands re-
paration for centuries of wrong ana
hurt by him endured-nanely, Justice.
II * n little less than miraculous con-
iuncture of events that in part he
cause of its finely loyal and passion
ately devoted Jewish population tue
American people is bent as no naaoh
,ns ever before been bent upon writ
ing into the code of the worlds pr"c
lice the statute and status OF JiS'ic''
Cven-handed and changeleSs, I" '''
Jew.
uonorins witness to the reality o
world-progress is to he founu III tnt
fact that the Jewish question he,"
not be put by Jews and yet must ''
answered by the Peace Conference
For one thing. as already. indirt'e''
half of the thirteen or fourteen mn
lions of Jews dwell in that ha'''
European zone which was sweep l"
war IL dozen times and now is rh'aH'''
yet again by those lesser wars "n'en