The following account of the leading events of the past year — 5693 — while not exhaustive is sufficient to give the reader a suggestive guide and index to the activities of world Jewry on its scattered frontiers:
Oct. 11, 1932—Meeting of the Palestine Economic Corporation at which it was announced that the reserve funds of the organization amounted to $2,000,000.
Oct. 27—The breaking out of anti-Semitic excesses at the University of Vienna which led to the closing of the University until order among the students could be restored. The Universities of Budapest and Warsaw were also the scenes of anti-Semitic outbreaks.
Nov. 8—Lewis French, Palestine Land Commissioner, resigned as director of the British Government Development Scheme. His action was believed due to the modifications which were proposed in the plan which he had outlined and submitted to the government in June.
Nov. 9—Herbert H. Lehman and Judge Henry Horner were elected the first Jewish governors of New York and Illinois.
Nov. 16—Fifteenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
Nov. 28—Anti-Jewish disturbances and riots in Warsaw, Cracow, Lwow, Wilno and provinces in which 146 Jews were injured. The rioting spread to such an extent that by December 6,399 Jews had applied for treatment. The District Governor of Lwow was accused of responsibility for anti-Semitic outbreaks because of his failure to provide protection.
Jan. 17, 1933—Anti-Semitic outbreaks at the University of Berlin in which Nazi students were joined by Storm Troopers.
Jan. 30—Hitler sworn in as German Chancellor. His appointment came as a surprise because the strength of the party seemed on the wane after a loss of thirty-five seats in the Reichstag in the elections of November 6.
Feb. 1—The German Reichstag was dissolved. Professor Ernst Cohen of the University of Breslau forced to suspend his lectures on law.
March 27—Madison Square Garden meeting called by the American Jewish Congress to protest the actions of the German government against the Jews.
April 1—The German government proclaims an official boycott of all Jewish business and professional men.
April 4—The German government begins its legislative action against the Jews in a series of laws limiting their activity.
April 8—An anti-Jewish outburst took place in open court at the trial of the nine Scottsboro negroes at Decatur, Alabama, at which the chief defense attorney was Samuel Leibowitz of New York. The solicitor of Morgan County, Wade Wright, addressed the jury saying: “Let it be demonstrated by you that Alabama justice cannot be bought and sold by Jew-money in New York”.
April 10—The first telephone communication between Palestine and the United States took place.
April 13—A debate took place in the House of Commons during which Nazi policies were condemned and a warning issued to the German government that it should not destroy the good-will it had built up since the armistice.
May 10—Nazi bonfires were ignited and the works of Jewish authors and other so-called non-Aryan writers were destroyed.
A mass protest meeting against the policies of the German government was held in Paris at the Trocadero.
June 27—Queens Hall, London, was a scene of a large mass meeting to protest the activities of the German government against the Jews.
July 6—The Lester report on the Bernheim petition was adopted by ### of Nations. This report held that the anti-Jewish measures put in effect in Upper Silesia violated the convention with Poland, and took note of the formal statement of the German government that the anti-Jewish measures in the Upper Silesian territory would be corrected.
July 14—The French Report was issued and came as a surprise to World Zionist hopes. The publication of the pessimistic Palestine paper, which declared that no state lands would be available for future colonization, was not expected until the fall.
July 15—Lord Alfred Melchett was officially converted to the Jewish faith.
July 28—Sir Robert Mond took the helm of the world boycott movement against Germany. The boycott conference is to be held in London in October.
Aug. 4—Jews flee Nuremberg as vicious press attacks continue to harass them.
Aug. 21—The eighteenth World Zionist Congress opens its sessions at Prague.
Aug. 25—Thirty-three Liberals, Socialists, Communists and Pacifists were deprived of their citizenship rights and property in an official announcement of the German government. Lion Feuchtwanger, Georg Bernhard, Alfred Kerr and A. Apfel were included in the list which contained many of Germany’s most prominent citizens.
Sept. 5—Nahum Sokolow, president of the World Zionist Organization was re-elected to serve in that office for the next two years. In its concluding session, the Eighteenth World Zionist Congress, directed an appeal to the League of Nations for assistance in obtaining an international loan for Palestine work and settlement of German Jews in Palestine. A resolution was passed to the effect that Great Britain be asked to relax and drastically revise the regulations governing the entrance of immigrants to Palestine.
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.
