Zionists State Their Case

The Zionist Jewish People’s Party also held a meeting here last night, at which its spokesmen explained its position.

Dr. Alfred Klee, the leader of the Party, after describing what had happened in the Representative Assembly, said:

Our community idea is the idea of the Jewish people. The Jewish Community in Germany is not an isolated German-Jewish Church, but part of all Jewry. We want equal rights for all sections who take their Judaism seriously. There must be no injustice to anyone. Only in that way can there be a united community.

When the People’s Party was in control, he said, it met the Liberals at every turn, so that they had no ground for complaint. The People’s Party had not exploited its influence in the previous community administration in order to allocate community funds for Palestine, or for other “outside Germany” purposes. They had not sought to do anything definitely against the wishes of the Liberal minority, or without their consent. It was with the agreement of the Liberals and with their signatures, that a Chair was established by the Berlin Jewish Community at the Jerusalem University, with an annual subsidy of 15,000 Marks, and that the Library of the Jerusalem University was given a quantity of books. It was also with the consent of the Liberals that a stipend had been created to enable teachers of the Community to visit Palestine. Now the Liberals refuse to stand by these obligations, he said. They are using their power to suppress the People’s Party. With a budget of millions they refuse a subsidy of 2,000 Marks to the Heholuz, and the staff of the Community is being reduced, with the idea of getting rid of officials who hold Zionist views.

The Jewish Community is built up on voluntary member-ship, Dr. Klee said. But that is no reason why it should not be firmly established.

WE ARE NOT GOING OUT OF THE COMMUNITY: WE ARE GOING TO NEXT MEETING WITH A RESOLUTION ON BASIS OF WHICH WE HOPE PEACE WILL BE RE-ESTABLISHED

We are not going out of the Community, he went on. We of the People’s Party want to do all that is possible to ensure the unity of the Community. We are going to the next meeting with a resolution which has been so drawn up that we hope that all members will be able to agree to it.

But if this resolution is not approved, then with the best will in the world, we have no choice but to go into opposition. If more than 28,000 voters are to be treated as a trifle, and everything is to be decided in the Liberal caucus room, then the public Representative Assembly is no more than a voting machine, and there can be no question of our further collaboration.

The situation is serious. We are on the verge of a fateful decision. We demand that our views should be given consideration in accordance with our numbers and our idealism, and we ask-Who is it that disrupts our Jewish Community?

THE RESOLUTION

Dr. Klee read out the following text of the resolution which will be introduced at the next meeting of the Assembly:

“The Berlin Jewish Community consists of all Jews living within its area, in accordance with the Law of 1847. Since no Jew should stand outside the Community, the Community recognises that it is its obligation to provide for the Jewish life of its members. As a united Community it comprises Jews who are not agreed in their views and in their religious ideas. They are all of them to be kept inside the united community, and the Community gives to every current of opinion which by its historic development and the number of its adherents is assured of existence, its authority and support, which will enable it to conduct a Jewish life according to its ideas.

WE WILL NOT BREAK OUR TIES WITH WORLD JEWRY

Herr Alfred Berger and Professor {SPAN}#einrich{/SPAN} Loewe followed Dr. Klee, and then Herr Georg Kareski, former President of the Berlin Jewish Community spoke. In view of the present political and economic situation, he said, one would think that there should be something else in their minds than Jews accusing Jews. There must be a very powerful reason to impel them to call the Jewish masses to an internal Jewish fight. But the reason, he said, is really a powerful one. It is a fight for the Jewish soul. The Liberals, {SPAN}as###{/SPAN} conditions have developed to-day in Germany have sustained an unparalleled defeat in respect of their ideology, and they want to draw us into their spiritual bankruptcy by keeping us away from all positive Jewish work in the Community. We are determined to resist that. We will not break our ties with world Jewry. We want to take part in the work that to-day welds Jewry together in an iron phalanx. The phrase “united Community” is not something to which we merely pay lip service. When we were in the majority, we gave the Liberals an opportunity to express themselves.

This meeting, he declared, is a warning at the eleventh hour. If we do not achieve unity, the Jewish People’s Party is determined to translate the phrase “Iron Front” into Jewish life.

The meeting then adopted the following resolution unanimously:

“We members of the Berlin Jewish Community, assembled at this mass demonstration of the Jewish People’s Party, express our confidence in the leaders of the Jewish People’s Party in their fight to secure the rights of all currents of opinion, and of the minorities in the Jewish Community, and we call upon them to continue their work along these lines”.