56 Friday, March 26, 1976 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS A Bicentennial Feature se8 Thomas Kennedy's Fight for Maryland's Jews MR. ETTING Is RIGHT! WE JEWS ARE THUS DEPRIVED OF CITIZENSHIP / TN 1797, IN MARYLAND, SOLOMON ETTING, BERNARD GRATZ, AND OTHER PROMINENT JEWS OF BALTIMORE CAME BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE... f ! OUR CONSTITUTION REQUIRES "BELIEF !N THE CHRISTIAN RELIGtON" FOR HOLDING PUBLIC OFFICE! „, (Editor's note: The cartoon at left, from Morris Epstein's "A Pic- ture Parade of Jewish History," and the following essay by Dr. Ep- stein are re-printed from The Jewish News, March 18, 1966 in honor of America's Bicentennial.) A VOTE WAS TAKEN TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION. AFTERWARD. • . THEY TRAVELED TO THE WESTERN PART OF THE STATE TO MEET A YOUNG STATE SENATOR. I WAS BORN IN WE HAVE HEARD OF YOUR SCOTLAND 1N '76, THE LIBERAL VIEWS, YEAR OF FREEDOM! MR. KENNEDY. I'M A PRESBYTERIAN WILL YOU AND I BELIEVE THAT TAKE UP EVERY CITIZEN MAY OUR CAUSE, WORSHIP GOD IN His MR. KENNEDY? OWN WAY! THERE ARE BUT A FEW JEWS IN MARYLAND. BUT IF THERE WERE ONLY ONE, WE WOULD OWE WITH YOU, HIM JUSTICE! GENTLEMEN! !‘, y di vb, BUT AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION HAD TO PASS TWO TIMES! HI5 ENEMIES WENT TO KENNEDY'S HOME COUNTY... BILL TO EXTRA/ EXTRA/ MAKE JEWS FULL CITIZENS PASSES LEGISLATURE! • I THANK YOU FOR RE-ELECTING ME —AND THUS VOTING FOR THE PRINCIPLES FOR WHICH I STAND./ KENNEDY KEPT HI5 WORD. ON FEB. 28, 182.6... MR. KENNEDY'S AMENDMENT HA5 BEEN CARRIED! AMERICANS OF THE JEWISH A RELIGIOUS FAITH THANK YOU, TEST CAN NEVER PRODUCE MR. KENNEDY! HAPPY RESULTS. THAT IS WHY I FOUGHT! PASSED FOR THE 2ND TIME, IT NOW BECAME A LAW! This cartoon is reproduced from "A Picture Parade of Jewish History" by Morris Epstein published by Shengold Publishers, by arrangement with the author and publishers. We take for granted the idea of religious freedom in America. But matters were not always so, and the process by which American Jews achieved religious liberty was often a difficult one. In Maryland, one of the original I 3 colonies, it was a Scotch Presbyter- ian who fought the battle for every man to worship God in his own way and still be a full citizen. The Maryland constitution of 1776 required "a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion" for holding office in the state. In 1797 Solomon Etting, his father-in-law Bernard Gratz, and other prominent Jews of Bal- timore petitioned the legislature to change this law. Etting and Gratz spoke up stoutly, recalling the role Maryland's 15 Jewish families had played in the American Revolution and poirt . out, among other facts, that Jacob Hart, a Baltimore merchant, raised $10,000 for Lafayette's soldiers. The bill was brought up in tne legislature time and again but it failed to pass until Thomas Kennedy took up the fight. Born in Scotland in 1776, Kennedy had come to Maryland in 1811. He did not live in Baltimore where about 150 Jews than resided, but in the western part of the state. His own feelings on the subject were very clearly stated: "There are scarcely any Jews in the country from which I come and I have but the barest acquaintance with any Jews in the world. There are few Jews in the United States; in Maryland there are very few, but if there were only one, to that one we ought to do justice. A religious test can never be productive of any good effect. It may prevent the honest and conscien- tious from accepting an office, but the wicked and ambitious will not be stopped by so feeble a barrier." The bill to make Jews full citizens was proposed as an amendment to the state constitution. An amendment had to pass two sessions of the legis- lature. .It passed in 1822 for the first time. But in the next election, the fight was carried into Kennedy's home country. He was defeated for re- election and his "Jew bill," as it was called, failed with him. In 1826 he campaigned for the "Jew bill" and was victorious. He ther- eupon introduced the bill into the legislature and proudly saw it carried for a second time. He had been bitterly opposed and he had fought only for the Jews, for_all Christians, including Catholics and Quakers, were already full citizens in Maryland. In gratitude to Kennedy, the Jews of Maryland later erected a monu- ment in his honor in Hagerstown, Md. Thomas Kennedy of Maryland, sincere worker for the advancement of man, deserves to be remembered because of his dedicated service on behalf of religious liberty. British Duplicity in Arab Boycott Fought by Gentile Group . By S. A. BARRAM LONDON — Unlike the American Jewish Congress, which has filed several suits against U.S. officials in the Arab boycott situation, British Jewry has not chal- lenged its government for its discrimination against Jewish firms and employes who have been blackballed by Arab governments. The Daily Telegraph, a leading British newspaper, reported that the Depart- ment of Trade and the For- eign Office both encourage collaboration with the Arab boycott. The Arab central office of boycott and the individual national boycott offices de- mand that firms produce certificates of "racial pur- ity", declarations that their goods are neither wholly nor partly Israeli, and that the company in question has no prominent Zionists on the board and rio members of the board belong to the joint Foreign/Israel Chambers of Commerce. For the pur poses of Arab boycott, no differentiation is made be- tween Jew and Zionist. Notary declarations of "racial purity" are au- thenticated by the British Foreign Office. Thus, the government has become a willing collaborator in an act of racial discrimina- tion. The Foreign Office rejects the accusation with the rather peculiar argu- ment that the counter-sig7 have produced a "Mafia- nature on the certificate like" state of fear and sil- does not "involve impro- ence among Jewish execu- tives and employes. per aid of the boycott." According to the Guard- In recent major interna- tional financing operations, ian, this organization is S. G. Warburg, N. M. Roths- pressing for a Freedom of child 'and other leading Information Act, which if banks with Jewish directors enacted, would open govern- have been excluded from un- ment files for public inspec- derwriting a loan to the tion_ so that details of dis- Marubeni- Japanese group, crimination would be easier to prove. which is backed by Arabs. Dr. Jacob Gewirtz, direc- British Leyland, the lead- ing auto manufacturer in tor of the Jewish Board of Deputies' defense commit- the United Kingdom, has been blacklisted because of tee in Britain, questioned by its business with Israel and the Guardian after the accu- the firm gave in to the boy- sations had been tabled cott. These-are only a few with the Race Relations Board, stated: "The Foreign examples. Reportedly, the boycott list, issued in Da- Office is -giving its services for immoral purposes, but I mascus, has 1,000 British would not say it is commit- firms on it. In spite of this, organized British Jewry did not ini- tiate any legal steps against racial discrimination, al- BY JOSEPH POLAKOFF though the law provides pro- (Copyright 1976, JTA, Inc.) tection against racial dis- crimination, even in cases _ "Kochlefel" is now part of America's political jargon. which involve the Crown. Another group has de- It emerged in front-page cided to fight our case, news in connection with Florida's hot Presidential where we failed by ommis- sion. The National Society primary campaign when for Crime Reduction and political analysts discovered Social Justice, sponsored the "kochlefels" in the Jew- by the Church of Scientol- ish communities that have ogy, filed a complaint with burgeoned in the 80-mile the Race Relations Board stretch between Miami on March 1, against the Beach and Palm Beach, Foreign Office and the known as "the Gold Coast." What is a kochlefel? Tech- Department of Trade for co-operating in the Arab nically, it's a spoon or ladle boycott, which was said to used to stir the food in a pot. ting discrimination. Dis- crimination involves some conscious act." Those who are familiar with the attitude of British Foreign Office senior offi- cials towards Israel over the last 30 years believe that the discrimination was in- tended and quite conscious. There was hardly a Bri- tish government in the last three decades in which senior civil servants were not outspoken anti-Israel and pro-Arab, starting with Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary prior to the 1948 War for Independence, who be- came infamous for his an- ti-immigration policy to Palestine and support of the Arabs. Others include Lord Carl dogan, Christopher Mayhew — the spokesman of the Arabs in Parliament, as well as Nuttings and David Ennals, both avowed Arab- philes. With the increasing Arab financial penetration of the West, such as the invest- ment of $1.4 billion in U.S. shares during 1975 and the available $42 billion surplus of the OPEC oil producing states, which by 1980 should reach a $200 billion surplus for investment, the Arab countries will be able to ex- ert.. even greater political and economic pressure on the West. Seen in this context, the point made by the London Jewish Chronicle, March 5, was particularly well taken; "At the end of the day, it is not really a Jewish (or Is- raeli) issue at all. The ques- tion of the role played by the government in the fur- therance of the boycott is really a test of the meaning of democracy: whether for money, or the prospect of money, the government can be coerced into abandoning the freedom of the individ- ual to trade, to employ or to be employed. "Freedom, as Solzhenit- syn reminded us, is indivisi- ble and 'one has to take a moral attitude towards it'. It is time, in this one small but testing instance, for the British government to take a moral attitude." - Florida `Kochlefels' Stir Republican Area Politically, a kochlefel is a stirrer, too. The three Gold Coast counties — Dade, Broward and Palm Beach — are growing rapidly and the Jewish element within that development is rated the largest, according to Lyle Deniston of the Washington Star who surveyed the Gold Coast in advance of the pri- mary. He gave the following example of that growth: "Five years ago, the Fort Lauderdale Jewish Federation estimates, the northern half- of Broward had only 5,000 Jews in it. That was the part of the county dominated by the Republicans; now, there are 60,000 Jews in the same sector; nearly half are 55-years old or olfer. There is no question that they are Democrats, over- whelmingly. Who are the kochlefels? Well, there is John Leban, 77, the retired Schenley ex- ecutive who is Democratic chairman in..Broward: or Harry Bilawsky, 71, a re- tired newspaper-magazine distributor from Brooklyn, who is chairman of Cresthaven Democr Club in Lake Worth, or car Sindell, also 77, and a power in Broward. They all agree that the "Jewish vote" is never in anybody's pocket. Deniston observed the retirement villages are generally shaping up Flor- ida issues in many ways. "The so-called 'Jewish is- sues' — aid to Israel and ef- forts to protect Soviet Jews — still count, but not neces- sarily decisively, many ob- servers here argue," Denis- ton reported.