The Denver Jewish news., 1925-09-17
SCHNElDERMAN REVIEWS PAST YEAR FOR JEWISH News

fund for the erection of a monu-
ment to Moses Maimonides, the 18th
century Jewish humanst, was inaug-
urated IN Spain, the government Of
which also promulgated an interest
ing decree offering Spanish citizen
ship to all those descendants of for
mcr Spanish subjects who care
enough about ii to comply with a few
simple formalities. It is not yet
known how this invitation has been
received by the hundreds Of thou
sands of Jews in the Mediterranean
basin who trace their ancestry to
Spanish forebears and who still
speak the language Of Cervantes.
The Jewish community of Lisbon
Portugal. has inaugurated a move
ment to reclaim for Judaism the
children of the thousands Of Maran-
nos or crypto-Jews, and has appealed
TO foreign Jewish communities for
help in this direction.
Coming now to the countries of
Central Europe, the picture becomes
darker, for in Germany, Austria,
Hungary, and Roumania, there were
no riots. The saddest feature of the
picture is that the younger genera
ton, especially the students at uni
versities, appears to have assumed
active leadership in this vicious and
shameful movement. In Austria, stu
dents rioted against Jewish lecturers,
in one case against professor whose
family has been Christian since the
middle of the 18th century. In Ger
many, cemetery vandalism was per
petrated, and fanatieism rose to such
a pitch that even monument erect
ed in Potsdam by Emperor Frederick
William in 1852 in honor of the gift
ed French-Jewish actress, Rachel Fe-
lix, was pulled down and shattered.
Students at the University of Frank
fort cavalierly decided to exclude
foreign Jewish applicants; in another
university the students forced jew
ish teacher to resign; and the Prus-
sian Minister of Education ordered
school authorities not to appoint
Jews as school superintendent. Be
cause the poetic genius Heine was a
Jew, his works are banned in many
of the high schools and colleges. In
both Austria and Germany, a move
ment is afoot to establish "Aryan'
theatres, from which all traces of
Semitic" influence are to be avoided
like the past.
Next to Russia, Hungary is per-
haps the darkest spot in the Jewish
picture of the past year. The Edu-
cation Law of 1920, embodying the
shameful numerus clausus, is still in
effect, and the government instituted
proceedings against the Jewish COM
munity of Budapest for appealing to
Jews in other countries for funds for
the victims of this barbaric device.
Though this suit was withdrawn, one
of those responsible for the appeal in
which the numerus clausus was just
ly called "a mockery of all culture
and all human rights" was found
guilty of having insulted the Hunga-
rian nation and was sentenced to a
years Imprisonment, Is it any Won
der then that students in one univer
sity went on strike against the ad-
mission OF Jews, or that Jews were
attacked during divine worship on
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement,
or that cabinet crisis impended
when a court acquitted the self-con-
fessed perpetrators of the Csongrad
outrage of December "a, 1928, who
threw a bomb into the midst of the
dancers at a charity ball, killing two
and wounding forty more, or that the
government granted amnesty to six
ty-four awakening Magyars" who
in 1919 murdered as many Jews of
Kecskemet, pardoning them on the
ground that they "acted under patri-
otto excitement"