THE JEWS AND BLACK MARKET
R,-" Janus " has done a public service in speaking out frankly on the ortunate fact that " the Jewish community in Britain has a black cord " in respect of black-market offences. As he says, to- keep silent bout it is to encourage the growth of anti-Jewish feeling to an extent hat might easily become dangerous. The question is whether that point as not already been reached, quite apart from encouragement of any tad.
The voice of "Janus " is not, however, the first one of influence to raised on this subject. Dr. J. H. Hertz, the Chief Rabbi, dealt with on two occasions last year. In his Passover letter, published in the ess on April ist, he wrote: Though others are guilty of the same and of even graver war- time transgressions, they do not in the eyes of the public com- promise their religious communities. But every Jew holds the good name of his entire people in his hands.
In his Pentecost sermon, reported on May 23rd, Dr. Hertz said, after owing appropriate passages of condemnation from the Prophet Amos, the alinud and the mediaeval rabbis:
Jewish participation in this and other offences has given rise to a grave defamation of Judaism and the Jewish name. It may make people forget that, in the present battle of human freedom, the Jew is doing his duty on every battle-front and in every theatre of war.
To those who detest as we all do the monstrous cruelties of the Jewish secution' in Europe it is a cause of amazement and grief that the bukes of Dr. Hertz should have been necessary, and should have been, all appearance, quite without effect. The plain facts still appearing aY after day, have turned what used to be the fad of a few into a wide-
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