In Fear Of Greeks, Jews Plead For Aid.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 3, 1913:
Tell Kinsmen in America They Expect Massacres in Anatolia at the Passover.
ACCUSED OF RITUAL MURDER
Greeks Use This as a Pretext for Punishing Them for Being Friendly with the Turks.
    Intensely vivid letters received by relatives in this city from kinsmen in Anatolia, describing persecutions of Jews of that country at the hands of the Greek inhabitants, were brought yesterday to the attention of the American Jewish Committee, with an appeal for intervention and protest against the continuance of the outrages from some authoritative body in this country. The letters are written in Ladino, a Spanish-Yiddish dialect, by merchants of Tchesme, a town of Anatolia, and some of them close with a warning to relatives in this country that they may be the last letters the writers will ever send, inasmuch as a general massacre of the Jewish inhabitants is imminent on the occasion of the near Greek Easter and the Jewish Passover celebrations, which fall at the same time.
    Just what action the American Jewish Committee will take in the matter could not be learned last night.
    Its President is Louis Marshall, and on its Executive Commitee are Justice Julian W. Mack of the Commerce Court; Dr. Cyrus Adler, President of Dropsie College, Philadelphia; Jacob H. Schiff, Justice Mayer Sulzberger, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, Julius Rosenwald, Jacob H. Hollander, the Rev. Dr. J. L. Magnes, Harry Cutler, Isaac W. Bernheim, Samuel Dorf, Isador Sobel, and A. Leo Weil.
    Tchesme is a town of about 15,000 inhabitants, all of whom are Greeks with the exception of twenty or thirty Jewish families and the officials of the Turkish Government. The town is nearly opposite the Island of Chios in the Aegean Sea, which island the Greeks have captured from the Turks.
    According to Dr. Herbert Friedenwald, Secretary of the American Jewish Committee, the Greeks are at present bringing against the Jewish residents of the place the terrible century-old accusation of ritual murder, a cry that has cost thousands of Jewish lives ever since the Middle Ages, by accusing Jews of using the blood of Christian children in preparing their "matzoth" or unleavened bread for the Passover feast.
    Here is one letter, written by Jacob Joseph, a reputable merchant of Tchesme, to his brother, David Joseph, in this city, and translated from the Ladino for THE TIMES:

Tchesme, Turkey, Adar 26, 5673,
(March 22, 1913.)
    My dear brother: Last week I advised you what is happening here to our people. All our supposed Greek friends turned out to be our enemies. They are accusing us or having kidnapped a Greek child and using the blood for our coming Passover. Young and old are maltreating our people wherever they see them, stoning them. &c. At a mass meeting held the other night they decided to boycott the Jews, not to buy anything of or to sell anything to them. The things began to happen in this way:
    About a month ago a little girl of Yanko Kallida, about 4 years old, who lived near the house of Maro (a wealthy man of that city) was lost, and people claimed at the time that outlaws went into the house and taking her for the rich man's child, kidnapped her with the idea of receiving some ransom. Then the parents claimed that the Turks took her and killed her.
    Ten days later the child was found in a well near the house of Nikro Tafio. It was Saturday morning, and all the people of the town, including the Governor and all the officials of the city, doctors, policemen, &c., went to view the body, and we also went to sec it. Before the removal of the body from the well to the house the Greeks on the scene began a great outcry that the Jews had taken the child for her blood for their Passover feast, and then all the Greeks came in front of our stores and prevented the people from coming into the stores, either to buy or to sell goods.
    The day after the meeting the Greek priest came with a pail of so-called "Cursed Water" (Aforissimos) and sprinkled it about so as to prevent any Greek from passing by our stores, for as you know, they believe any Christian stepping on that water must eventually die, unless the priest revokes the order.
    Yesterday Vassil Simyakou. who was supposed to be a friend of ours and for whom you did so many favors when you were here, went with a revolver to the landlord of our store and threatened to kill him if he did not put us out of the store by April 1. So you understand now what kind of a situation we are in. It is not a matter of changing a store and paying more for it. They are simply taking the means of our livelihood. Some of our people have begun to emigrate because of this state of things. I am afraid that if no one interferes in our favor they are even going to put us out of our house.
    Please ask the newspapers and the organizations to interest themselves in our plight, as the Greeks will surely kill us the first chance that they get. Our Chacham Bashif (Chief Rabbi at Constantinople) made the Government write to the Greek Patriarch that he should advise the Greeks of our city to stop their outrageous conduct against us. The chief Greek priest here received a letter and posted it on the door of the church with a remark under it, sealed by himself, telling the Greeks that the Jews are such evil-minded people and have so much influence with the Turkish Government that they brought pressure upon our holy Patriarch to write to us a letter in their favor against his own wishes.
    I just hear while I am writing you this letter that they have even a false witness, and that he is going to the house of the Governor to say that he saw the little girl in my store and in the store of Raphael Touvi, which is some distance from my store, just before she disappeared, when at first they stated she had disappeared at night.
    The Greeks in our city are writing to Greeks in Smyrna urging them to discharge Jews in their employ under penalty of boycotting them.
JACOB JOSEPH.

    In a letter dated Adar 3, 5673 (Feb.. 10. 1913), sent by Jacob Abulafia of Tchesme to Isaac Abulafia or New York City, he corroborates among other things the story given in the letter of Jacob Joseph. Another dated Feb. 26 from Abraham Isaac to Mordecai Isaac of New York City tells the same story, and another letter of Feb.27 from Aaron Palambo to his friend, Isaac Abulafia of this city, repeats the story, and tells the adventure he had while traveling from the city of Tchesme to a nearby town, when some Greeks caught him on the way, and, after taking all his money and his gold watch and ring, beat him badly, tied his hands behind his back and kicked him down an embankment, telling him that this was the punishment to be expected by the Jews for their being friendly with the Turks and the Turkish Government.
    "This might be regarded as an isolated instance of fanaticism," said Dr. Friedenwald last night, "were the hostility of the Greek Catholic Church, particularly to the Jews and to the adherents of other denominations, not so well known. Recently, when Salonika was captured by the Greeks, a number of Jews were murdered, their houses and shops pillaged, and the women outraged. Similar excesses have occurred in several other places in the possession of the Greeks.
    "As the Jewish Passover is but a few weeks off, the Jews, wherever the Greek Catholic Church predominates, are in mortal dread that the slander of the use of Christian blood for 'ritual' purposes will be given renewed impetus by the priests, who take no steps to prevent the promulgation of this outrageous charge."