Canadian Zionists Open Session in Winnipeg

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

Three hundred and fifty delegates representing the East and West were present at the opening of the twenty-first annual convention of the Canadian Zionist organization yesterday morning at the Royal Alexandra Hotel here. M. J. Finkelstein, chairman of the convention committee, opened the sessions. R. H. Hoey, Minister of Education of the Province of Manitoba and R. H. Webb, mayor of Winnipeg, welcomed the delegates and handed the key of the city to A. J. Freiman, president of the Canadian Zionist Federation.

M. M. Ussischkin, who comes with a special message to Canadian Zionists on behalf of the Jewish National Fund, addressed the delegates in Hebrew. Referring to his recent visit to Ottawa during the Canadian confederation celebrations, Mr. Ussischkin expressed the hope that the same confederation and the spirit of sacrifice and union will animate Canadian Jewry and that it will take even less than the sixty years it took for confederation to achieve its aim, before Palestine will be a gem in the crown of the British empire as Canada is.

“If the Jewish people will redeem Palestine, Palestine will redeem the Jewish people,” he declared.

In his presidential address A. J. Freeman declared: “Our best policy at this time is to acquire as great an area of land as possible, because by buying land in piecemeal fashion, the way we are in the habit of doing, we are only hampering our progress. You must realize how vitally essential it is for us to concentrate our efforts on finding ways and means of adding to our land resources.”

At the second session of the convention. Rabbi J. L. Zlotnik, executive director of the Federation reported on Zionist activities in Canada.

The Keren Hayesod collection since the last convention amounted to $218,000; the National Fund collection was $57,750 and the Hadassah funds raised during the same period totalled $22,500.