Dr. Wise. in Paris Statement, Defends Zurich Conference on Jewish Rights

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

Dr. Stephen S. Wise, the President of the American Jewish Congress, who is now in Paris, has made a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here replying to the criticism levelled against the projected Conference on Jewish Rights by Mr. Berl, editor of “Paix et Droit”, the organ of the Alliance Israelite Universelle.

Dr. Wise expresses the hope that the Alliance does not endorse the views of Mr. Berl on this subject. “I do not like the idea of the Alliance,” he stated, “which is the creation of Cremieux, adopting in its opposition to the Conference for Jewish Rights, the language of the enemies of Israel, and using phrases such as ‘international action’. ‘international institution’, and ‘international bureau’.

“Not as President of the American Jewish Congress, but as a Jew and an American, I protest against this new type of anti-Semitism,” Dr. Wise declared.

“We do not need Mr. Berl and his colleagues to instruct us in our duty toward our countries. What is important at this moment is that we should come together and discuss in a friendly manner, as citizens of our respective countries, what we can do to safeguard the rights of the minorities provided for in the Peace Treaties. for which our two countries in particular. Mr. Berl’s and my own, are responsible.

“The aim of the Conference is not to create an international organ, party, or institution, but only to safeguard in the most efficacious manner the rights of the minorities granted to the Jews and the other minorities by the Versailles Peace Conference.

“Mr. Berl thinks that because my American Jewish friends and I wish to consult the Jews of other countries, we are forgetting the national interests of our own country. Has the Alliance forgotten its duties towards France by defending the interests of the Jews in other countries?

“The Jewish right to live as loyal citizens of their countries is a national question,” Dr. Wise continued. “but the wrongs inflicted on the Jews, that is a matter of international scope.

“How will I ‘compromise’ my country by meeting other Jews at a public discussion as to ways and means of strengthening one of the instruments of peace, signed by France and Great Britain and incorporated as part of the constitution of countries such as Roumania and Poland?

“Do French or British citizens ‘compromise’ themselves towards their own countries by creating leagues for the suppression of the white slave traffic or the trafficking in drugs? We do not compromise our countries by discussing in public, not in private, the wrongs done to the Jews, and it is not privileges they ask.

“The point of principle involved is the same that it was a generation ago–that of the belief-familiar to us and incredible to others-that the Jews are solely and exclusively a religious sect. For my part, I feel tied to the Jews of the whole world by something more than the affirmation of the ‘Shema’; I regard it as no less important for us to proclaim to the world the injustice of persecuting jews than it is to reaffirm the unity of God.

“Mr. Lucien Wolf, one of the most distinguished and well-informed Jews in international affairs, stated a few weeks ago, that the public agitation set on foot by the American Jewish Congress in connection with the ill treatment of the Jews in Roumania was not without avail and that the time had come for his organizations which are in the habit of using diplomatic methods, to adopt an attitude of public criticism of the Roumanian Government.

“If Mr. Berl wishes, we shall be glad to have him present as a fraternal ‘observer’ at the Conference in Zurich, where he will be able to convince himself that the Conference is dangerous only to the old regime of the grand dukes’. to use Zangwill’s phrase-whether this regime is in Paris, London or New York,” Dr. Wise stated.