New names were added today to the roll of organizations and persons, Jewish and non-Jewish, joining the battle against United States participation in the 1936 Berlin Olympic games.
The Jewish Labor Committee, representing national and local trade unions, was on record with a resolution adopted at its second annual conference urging sports organizations to boycott the games.
The 920 delegates to the conference yesterday heard Mayor La Guardia add his voice to the anti-Berlin-Olympics chorus with an attack on the Nazi government for its persecution of the Jews.
George Gordon Battle, co-chairman of the Committee on Fair Play in Sports, made public a letter to Gen. Charles H. Sherrill, American member of the International Olympic Committee, declaring, “Your thought that the youth of America will forgive the excesses of the German government and will direct their resentment against their fellow American Jews is in my judgment an unjustified reflection on our youth.”
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue, preaching before the Community Church in exchange with Rev. John Haynes Holmes, asserted that General Sherrill’s warning that Olympics opposition would bring a wave of anti-Semitism in this country “will intimidate only the basest of cowards.”
Dr. Holmes, in the pulpit of the Free Synagogue, declared, “The essence of the Jewish horror is not violence, though violence occasionally occurs, but the program of slow but sure extermination.”
Help ensure Jewish news remains accessible to all. Your donation to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency powers the trusted journalism that has connected Jewish communities worldwide for more than 100 years. With your help, JTA can continue to deliver vital news and insights. Donate today.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
