Explains Jewish Editorial

Julius T. Loeb, “Letters to the Editor: Explains Jewish Editorial,” Birmingham Age-Herald (Birmingham, AL), May 27, 1911. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038485/1911-05-27/ed-1/seq-5/ 

Explains Jewish Editorial

To the Editor of The Age-Herald.

    Sir: Since the article entitled “Jewish Criminals,” had appeared on the first page of The Birmingham Age-Herald of last Sunday's issue, I have been extremely anxious to learn as to what press syndicate had circulated that story, and also what the Jewish Daily News, or Yiddish Tageblatt, from whence the article was taken, might have to say concerning the same. And now, as was to be expected, the Jewish Daily News has an interesting account of the matter. It says:

    “The New York Globe printed in its yesterday’s issue a translation from an editorial in the Tageblatt, one week old, concerning the shooting and robberies on the East Side, and in so doing that publication had seen fit to set up in “glaring headlines” such things as have crippled entirely the manner and matter of the said editorial.

    “The Globe allowed the translation to be made by an idiotic writer, who had in several instances substituted his own views in place of those expressed in the editorial. For example: We said that the Jewish gangs had their control exclusively over the Jewish population, and that when we look upon the operations of these gangs on the East Side, we are inclined with heartache to find an excuse for Commissioner Bingham's statement of two years ago.

    “The Globe places upon the article a caption of ‘Bingham is Right,’ a thing which the writer of the editorial has never dreamed of. An excuse might be sought for the one who committed a crime, but that is far from saying that the offender was right.

    “Bingham’s name was mentioned in our editorial merely as a warning to Jewish citizens, so that we Jews might endeavor to remedy the situation ere the Binghams and their ilk would begin to talk over It.” 

    In another aticle [sic] on the subject (May 23), the editor of the Jewish Daily News says. “There is absolutely nothing in our editorial to suggest that Bingham was right. This was not a question of what Bingham had said two years ago regarding the number of criminal offenders among Jews; as we made no mention here of the number of Jewish offenders. It matters not whether there be a hundred of those ‘bandits,’ or there be only 20 of them, the fact is that they cause themselves to be felt now more than ever before. The police could have easily eradicated all the gangs from the East Side (the same might be truly spoken of many another place of settlement in the United States) if it had not been so busily engaged in its petty politics and controversies with the mayor of New York.”

    The newspaper concludes by saying that inasmuch, as criminal offenders were always so rare among the Jewish people, the circumstance is all the more striking, and it is particularly the duty of the Jewish citizens of the East Side to rise up in one united effort to expose the vile element and remove the evil from their midst ere another Bingham would come to bring out an “indictment” against all the Jews.

    The editor of The Birmingham Age-Herald will kindly give the above the same prominence in his publication as was given to the article on last Sunday.

    Respectfully, 

    JULIUS T. LOEB,

    Rabbi Knesseth-Israel Congregation.

    Birmingham, May 26, 1911.