Trost Fur Die Juden / Von J. F. Rutherford

In German. 144 pages. 185 x 125 mm. Small hard cover book in the original dark blue calico. It was originally sold for 30 pfennigs, plus postage. The soft cover was sold for 20 pfennigs, plus postage. The verso of the title page is a reproduction of a letter by Nathan Straus praising RUtherford for his desire to see the return of the Jews to Palestine and his, Rutherford's, Zionist ideals. Nathan Straus (January 31, 1848 - January 11, 1931) was a German-born, American merchant and philanthropist who co-owned two of New York City's biggest department stores, R. H. Macy & Company and Abraham & Straus. Straus privately funded the Nathan Straus Pasteurized Milk Laboratory, providing pasteurized milk to children to combat infant mortality and tuberculosis, thus saving the lives of millions of infants. During the economic panic of 1893, Straus used his milk stations to sell coal at the very low price of 5 cents for 25 pounds to those who could pay. Those who could not afford to pay 5 cents received coal free. He opened lodging houses for 64,000 people, who could get a bed and breakfast for 5 cents, he funded 50,000 meals for one cent each, gave away thousands of turkeys anonymously. At Abraham & Straus he noticed that two of his employees were starving themselves to save their wages to feed their families, so he established what may have been the first subsidized company cafeteria. During the winter of 1914-15, he served 1,135,731 penny meals for the unemployed from his milk depots in New York City. In 1916, as American entry into World War I loomed, he sold his yacht Sisilina to the Coast Guard, and used the proceeds to feed war orphans. Later he fed returning American servicemen at Battery Park. Straus donated money to the New York Public Library, helped the city's poor by building a recreational pier, the first of many on the city's waterfront. He was a fervent Zionist, and appreciated Rutherford's Zionism. Joseph Franklin Rutherford (November 8, 1869 - January 8, 1942), also known as Judge Rutherford, was the second president of the incorporated Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. He played a primary role in the organization and doctrinal development of Jehovah's Witnesses, which emerged from the Bible Student movement established by Charles Taze Russell. Russel was a Philo-Semite who held Zionist views, met with Zionist leaders, suggested to Edmund Rothschild and the Baron Hirsch that they buy from the Ottomans all non-privately held land in Palestine and settle Jews there, believed that Jews never lost "God’s favor," and believed that no attempts should be made by Christians to convert Jews. Rutherford espoused the same views and started out as a Philo-Semite, but in 1928 Rutherford discarded Russell's teaching that the Jews would be restored to their homeland, despite having declared ten years earlier that prophecies of their restoration were already being fulfilled with the British takeover of Palestine from Turkey during World War I. Rutherford started denying that there was a role for Jews in God's Kingdom arrangement, and by 1933 he reversed Russell's earlier teaching, and began claiming that prominent Jewish business leaders were "arrogant, self-important and extremely selfish." The teaching that God would restore the Jews to Palestine was discontinued around the same time. Rutherford’s changed views made this pro Zionist 1925 book, Comfort for the Jews (Trost fuer die Juden, in the German language edition), an embarrassment, and so Jehovaha’s Witnesses were instructed by Rutherford to destroy copies of this book he had written. Later, the Nazis, who deemed Jehovah's Witnesses enemies of the state, to be sent to concentration camps, destroyed whatever German language copies they got their hands on. So most copies of the German language edition that the Jehovah's Witnesses did not themselves destroy, were destroyed by the Nazis, making this edition rare.…