Hon. William I. Sirovich. Hitler's Persecution of the Jews in Germany. * AND: William I. Sirovich. America the Haven of Liberty-Seeking Immigrants.

William Sirovich (1882-1939) a seven-term congressman for the 14th District of New York grew up on the Lower East Side, where his father, Jacob, headed the Hungarian Talmud Torah and was rabbi of the Columbia Street and Clinton Street synagogues. In "Hitler's Persecution," the first of these two spectacularly eloquent speeches delivered in the House of Representatives, this one just a few weeks after the "cowardly, sadistic, paranoiac madman" Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Sirovich protests the "foul, iniquitous, and brutal treatment " of the Jews in Germany and proclaims his "loyalty and devotion to the Jewish religion." His remarks then take off on a (sometimes eccentric) grand tour through Jewish history. Repeatedly, he is interrupted by fellow congressmen, some of whose best friends may be Jewish, but who, nevertheless, are liable to believe that the fate of this minority in Germany is no business of Congress or that "unjust persecution of any nation is a real tonic." In "America the Haven," Sirovich predicts not just world war but the division of Germany in two, which he attributes to religious and ethnic bigotry and persecution. In the second portion of this pamphlet he publishes his 1929 rebuttal of the contention by Congressman Henry St. George Tucker of Virginia that "children from the sons of the Covenant were never intended by our forbears to participate in the Government of the United States." In response, Sirovich invokes the contribtions to the American War of Independence of both Jews and aliens (such as Lafayette). He then proceeds to a defence of religious toleration so comprehensive that his sympathies extend beyond Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims to include adherents of "Mithraism, Molochism and idolism".