The High Commissioner returned a non-commital reply, saying that he had met in London the leaders of the Agudath Israel World Organisation and its Palestine Centre and that he therefore knows their views on the question.
The delegation also asked that the Agudath Israel Organisation should be given 50 immigration permits to enable 50 Yeshibah students to be brought into Palestine.
General Sir Arthur auchope received a delegation of the Agudah. World Organisation and its Palestine Centre in London in October, before he left to take up his appointment in Palestine. A few days previously, the late High Commissioner, Sir John Chancellor, had received in London Mr. H. A. Goodman, the Secretary of the Agudah World Executive, who thanked him for the sympathetic manner in which he had dealt with the problems of independent orthodox Jewry in Palestine during his term of office. Sir John, it was stated, had renewed his keenest sympathy for Jewish endeavours in the Holy Land, and especially for the work of Jewish orthodoxy there, and said that he was gratified at the opportunities which had been presented to him from time to time of assisting in this direction.
Previously I believed that a united Jewish community in Palestine was possible, but I now see that it is almost impossible and therefore I shall do my best to satisfy both parties, Sir John Chancellor was reported to have told a delegation of the Palestine Agudath Israel Community, headed by its leader, Rabbi Chaim Sonnenfeld, which urged him in January 1929 to give official recognition to their separatist community. The delegation took particular pains to impress upon Sir John the desire of the Agudah to co-operate with the Vaad Leumi (Jewish National Council in Palestine) whenever it can do so without prejudice to its religious views, as in the elections to the Jerusalem Municipality, on the question of the Wailing Wall, and other questions of common interest.
At the time of the issue of the Passfield White paper, too, the Palestine Agudah joined in the united protest of the whole of Palestine Jewry, and Rabbi Blau, one of the leaders of the Palestine Agudah declared: “We do not intend to break the unity of Palestine Jewry. We shall also”, he added, “stand with the whole of Palestine Jewry against the elections to the Legislative Council”.
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.
