Rumanian Jews.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 23, 1913:
    M. Clemenceau, with the zeal and energy on which years seem to have no effect, has taken up the cause of the Rumanian Jews. As the influence of France can be brought to bear directly on the signatories of the Berlin treaty, which Rumania has for years persistently violated, and as the voice of M. Clemenceau is one to which French Ministers do well to listen, it may be that something really will be done in the matter.
    The case is very simple. The treaty of Berlin required, in substance, that the Jews in Rumania, being subjected to the obligations of citizenship, and meeting these loyally, should have equal rights with other citizens. Not even the most rabid anti-Semite will assert that the Jews of Rumania have not performed all their duties. They are, as a class, law-abiding, industrious, self-supporting, and, in the army, have been faithful soldiers. Yet, with the exception of a few for whom special laws have been passed and of those in Dobrondja and Silistria, they are treated as foreigners. As M. Clemenceau says:
    They are foreigners, although they, belong to no other nation and can claim no protection from any other Power, thus forming an international monstrosity by having no country.
    The Jewish Rumanian soldier who shed his blood on the field of battle is not allowed to enter a workshop, because he is a foreigner. His children are not admitted to school, because they are also foreigners.
    The United States is not a party to the treaties which Rumania has so long scouted, but it has a light to use what influence it can upon the public opinion of the world to induce action that shall right this obvious and long-continued wrong. A strong organization for that purpose has just been formed. Men of all parties and of various forms of religious belief, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, are joining it. The immediate objective will be, of course, to secure action by the Governments which are parties to the treaty of Berlin, and to this the vigorous arguments and appeals of M. Clemenceau are sure to contribute.