The Astor Hotel on Sunday evening was besieged by large crowds, mainly representatives of organizations, who came to attend a conference called by the American Jewish Congress in order to discuss a mass protest in connection with the present Jewish situation in Germany. So congested by delegates and people anxious to gain admittance, did the entrances to the hotel become, that police reinforcements had to be called out. Eventually, large numbers of the people, including many representing organizations, were turned away as the conference hall could hold no more.
The crowded conference hall included delegates from scores of Jewish organizations in New York, synagogues, trade unions, Landsmanschafften, and every variety of Jewish society.
Mr. Bernard S. Deutsch, President of the American Jewish Congress, opened the meeting. He referred in brief to the tragic situation of German Jewry, as illustrated by the daily reports, of their deprivation of rights, violence, and their exclusion from all means of livelihood. He emphasized that it was not the object of the conference to interfere in the internal affairs of the German people. “Germany,” he said, “had a right to whatever government it desired. But no one had a right to interfere with the human rights of the Jews, or to subject them to the intolerable indignities and persecutions which they were now suffering.”
Other speakers were Rabbi Masliansky; Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky; Joseph Weinberg, President of the Workers’ Circle; Dr. Joseph Tannenbaum, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Congress; Dr. A. Coralnik, who spoke on behalf of the Peretz Verein; and Dr. Samuel Margoshes, who moved the resolution. All the speakers supported in powerful language the objects for which the conference had been called and identified themselves with a monster demonstration in Madison Square Garden, which it was proposed to hold as part of a nation-wide protest meeting.
The resolution affirmed the decision of the conference for the holding of protest demonstrations to be held simultaneously throughout the United States, initiated with a monster demonstration in Madison Square Garden.
The resolution also called for the appointment of a Committee of 100, to be chosen by the conference and entrusted with the arrangement of the protest demonstrations. The committee was also empowered by the resolution to take what other steps it might deem desirable in the event of the situation in Germany showing no improvement.
The debate which followed the reading of the resolution produced a number of diametrically opposed views. On the one hand, M. Danzis, representing the Revisionists and Mr. Federman, representing the Jewish War Veterans, protested that the resolution was not sufficiently sharp; both speakers called for an amendment instructing the committee to proceed to the organization of a boycott of German goods in this country.
On the other hand, both Judge Proskauer and James N. Rosenberg, a Vice-Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, appealed that the conference should decide on no rash action. They asked that the resolution be referred back to the committee for consideration and that no decision should be reached by the conference regarding demonstrations which, they declared, might still further inflame the German Nazis and endanger the lives of German Jewry.
Rabbi Dr. Stephen S. Wise, who followed, agreed that the resolution was not well worded. He proposed the election of a small committee for revising the resolution stylistically. He insisted, however, that the situation demanded nation-wide protest and the exertion of every possible effort on behalf of German Jewry.
A resolution was eventually unanimously adopted agreeing in substance with that proposed by Dr. Samuel Margoshes. A committee of 100 was elected to carry the resolution into effect.
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.
