“It is in a sense surprising that a controversy should he evoked by a Confernce, the purposes of which are so elementarily simple and elearly essential so immediate Jewish needs abroad,” declared Mr. Bernard G. Riehards, Executive Secretary of the American Jewish Congress, in an noterview with the representative of the Jewish Daily Bulletin prior to his deparnire for Burope.
Mr. Richards sailed Friday evering on the S. S. Aurania to attend the Conference on Jewish Rights to be held in Zurich August 17th to 20th.
“However.” Mr. Richards continued, “when one thinks about it for a moment and remenbers that Jewry is, perhaps to a lesser extent than hitherto but still divided into differant groups dominated by conficting po##ts of view the surprise disappears. These differences of opining manifested themselves in 1919 and the wonder parhaps is that we did not since then make greater progress in having the affirmative and aggressive points of view of Jewish life more generally accepted. All the dissentors, respected and well-meaning persons, have been heard from before and the invitations to the Conference which are sapposed to have been declined now were actually rejected in 1919, so that the present action is not new from a newspaper point of view. But it is very curious that Mr. Blank should make an issue out of the sending of invitations to organizations which peviously made it very elear that they did not intend to participate.The desire was clearly to have every group represented–at any rate, those who take part in the Conference will always be ready to cooperate, at least on occasion, with all other organizations to the extent that cooperation is from time to time made necessary and feasible. We are, afer all, making toward greater harmony and unity in Jewish life and what is of the most vital importance is to arouse the interest and to bring about the participation of ever larger numbers in the problems connected with the legal status of the Jews in Eastern Europe.
“The Conference in Zurich will not only arouse the wide interest of Jewry but also elicit the sympathy of wide circles of non-Jews in the rights of all minorities, Jewish and non-Jewish,” Mr. Richards stated.
The sessions of the Conference on Jewish Rights will be held in the Schwurgerichtsaal of the Kantonalen Gerichtsgebaude on the Hirschengraben in Zurich, with the American Delegates making their headquarters at the Savoy Hotel.
Mr. Richards is to read a paper before the Conference on “American Public Opinion and the Rights of European Minorities.”
Among other delegates who are sailing within the next few days to attend the conference are Benjamin W. Titman and Abraham Goldberg. Abraham Goldberg.
Mr. Titman, when asked for a statement, declared: “I am going to Europe to attend the Conference on Jewish Rights because I am interested in the question of minority rights in general, and especially as these affect the Jewish minorities in various countries in Europe. I believe such a conference has great possibilities to do good in the direction of securing and protecting the rights of Jews wherever these are threatened or violatd.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
