Much commotion was caused a the meeting Sunday of the Nation al Zionist Executive Committee by Sokolow’s statement in which he termed the convocation of a World Jewish Congress as inopportune at this time. While all speakers claimed to be committed to the principle of the World Jewish Congress, some appealed for postponement. Dr. Wise, in a powerful and moving address, accused them of intending to betray the cause itself. He referred to the fact that the first Zionist Congress was attended only by 225 delegates, most of whom were not popularly elected, and with only two delegates from the United States.
If Herzl, instead of calling the Congress in 1897, had waited another seven years in order to secure a truly fully representative Congress, he said, the Zionist Congress would never have come into being, as he died in 1904.
Jacob Fishman contended that the American Jewish Congress has bungled the preparations for the World Congress. Neither the working masses nor the orthodoxy have been won over to the cause of the World Congress. He strongly pleaded for a postponement which would ultimately serve the best interests of the movement. Another speaker declared that the Zionist Congress representing the Jewish state on the road to Palestine should also take care of all the pressing problems of diaspora Jewry. Serious harm, he claimed, might ensue for national and Zionist interests if the World Congress should take place, where anti-nationalist and other elements might participate and utilize the #unce to break up national unity which Zionists had created with such terrific effort.
According to Dr. Wise, however, just as there was room in the Zionist Organization for a number of parties with conflicting views, the same was also true of the World Congress. Unity should not be confounded with uniformity, he explained.
The Dollfuss government, in order to save itself, is about to carry out cne plank after another of the Nazi program. The Sociatists, who are about forty per cent of the population, are being suppressed. All parties are about to be liquidated, and the Heimwehr and other forces are pressing the government to institute an anti-Semitic regime. Hitlerism without Hitler is obviously the intent and purpose of this policy. To save Austria from going Nazi by satisfying all and every demand of the Nazi policies is a fallacy under which the Dollfuss government seems to labor.
The infamous “Handbuch zur Judenfrage,” (Guide to the Jewish Problem) of the late Theodor Fritsch is being removed from all Catholic libraries, and from the private libraties of Catholic families in Germany according to the Vatican organ Osservatore Romano.
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.
