Die Welt

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No. 44. Vienna, 2 November 1900. Fourth Year

Rebuked!

(A correspondence between the "Israelitische Allianz" in Vienna and the Board of the Israelitish Cultusgemeinde in Budapest.)

When the unhappy Roumanian emigrants were in Vienna by hundreds, a fearful picture of despair and misery, the "Israelitische Allianz" in Vienna likewise resolved upon an action of relief. How the "Allianz" conceived the rescue of our poor Roumanian brethren is made plain by a letter which it addressed to the Board of the Israelitish Cultusgemeinde in Budapest. Our informant, a personage held in high esteem in Budapest society, reports of it:

On the 10th of July 1900, Dr. Wahrmann and Dr. Katzau wrote, in the matter of the Roumanian emigrants, a letter to the Budapest Cultus board in the name of the "Allianz", whose four closely written quarto pages are couched in a language too turgid for our informant to venture to set it in its whole content before the readers of the "Welt". Briefly stated: in this letter the "Allianz" called upon the Budapest Cultus board to obtain from the Hungarian Government the closing of the frontier against the Roumanian emigrants.

The Cultus board returned the "Allianz" the following answer forthwith:

1039/900 sz.

"To the worthy Board of the "Israelitische Allianz" in Vienna.

We have the honour, with reference to your esteemed communication of the 10th of July, to express the view that it is simply out of the question that we, as a Jewish authority, should propose to our Government, and call forth, measures restricting the free movement of our Roumanian brethren. This would be a fatal precedent, to which the enemies of Jewry could always appeal. We beg you to appreciate this our point of view, and to be assured that here we take upon ourselves every toil and every sacrifice in the interest of forwarding our unhappy brethren in the faith, even as we have also written in this sense to the Jewish frontier congregations.

The Board of the Pest Israelitish Religious Congregation: Budapest, 13 July 1900. Baumgarten, m. p., President."

A rebuff which, for all the courtesy of its form, could not be more thorough. The decision with which the Budapest Cultus board guards itself against the un-Jewish action expected of it by the "Allianz" leaves nothing to be desired. The narrow-heartedness of the "Allianz" could not have been held up to it more nobly and at the same time more plainly, nor could it have been reminded of its duty more energetically, than by the simple, brief answer of the Budapest Jews: "We shall take upon ourselves every toil and every sacrifice" ...

*

To be sure, what this letter has availed, and how the fine example of deed which the Hungarian Jews have given has worked upon the "Allianz", we know: the letter from Pest it has prudently locked away in its cupboard. And if we have succeeded to-day in making the public acquainted with this document, it has long since succeeded in obtaining the "closing of the frontier". In Budapest the "Allianz" was soundly rebuked. And so in Vienna busy back-stairs men ran to and fro about the ministerial palaces until the emigrants were shut out. And the poor upon the Danube Quay? Them they thrust, with the help of the police, into the railway trains and pushed them on board the steamers. Away, away with them, they rend our hearts! Now the unhappy creatures are in their "home". Who reads the flaming protests, the letters of lamentation, which are addressed from down yonder to the "Allianz"? A compassionate waste-paper basket receives them ... That is the end of the relief action of the "Allianz".