To the Editor:
I have read Robert Pick’s article, “A Refugee Looks at Anti-Semitism Here,” in the September COMMENTARY, with great interest.
It is reassuring to have pointed out, as Mr. Pick does, the essentially friendly attitude of the government to Jews. There are probably some exceptions to this in local and state administrations, but it is a fact for which to be profoundly grateful that anti-Semitism has not been accepted as a political expedient.
Perhaps the surest way to continue that condition is to see that Jews have political opportunity as citizens entirely irrespective of race or religion.
The very personal and dispersed nature of anti-Semitism, as Mr. Pick reveals it, makes it difficult to attack on a broad and general front. Multitudes of isolated incidents may occur and yet most of us from the majority remain entirely uninformed about them. To meet this, continuous effort on the part of members of the majority group to expand normal contacts between Jew and Gentile, plus emphasis on elimination of anti-Semitism in educational institutions—these at least are some of the ways in which the ordinary citizen can contribute to eliminating second-class citizenship in general.
However, there is no security against the spirit of exclusion unless one concerns oneself with it as it manifests itself against any group—foreigners, Negroes, Jews, or any minority.
Clarence E. Pickett
American Friends Service Committee
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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