The attention of the Jews of the world is centered on its Holy Land this week. From Jerusalem comes an authoritative report that the French government is examining details of a plan for the settlement of a large number of German Jewish refugees in Syria near the frontier of Palestine.
The French High Commissioner, it was learned, is planning to recommend the project to his government. The Jewish Agency for Palestine is negotiating with a group of Syrian notables for the purchase of a large tract of land near the Palestine border. Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Moshe Shertok, Zionist leader, were in Syria recently carrying on negotiations with the High Commissioner.
At the same time a group of private persons are carrying out a survey of a tract of land near the border of Iraq with the object of settling other. German Jewish refugees there.
French officials are impressed with the huge surplus in the Palestine treasury as contrasted with their own deficit.
At a meeting in Jerusalem with some two hundred delegates attending and more than 1,000 visitors, the National Labor Federation was organized. The new group plans to unite the Revisionists and the religious labor elements. They oppose the Histadruth Central Labor Federation of Palestine.
The Palestine treasury reported that since April, 1933 its surplus has virtually doubled, now amounting to more than $10,000,000.
According to a report from Jerusalem, High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope has informed the Colonial Office that he has no objection to granting a visa to Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of the World Revisionist Zionist organization.
GERMANY
Julius Streicher, notorious anti-Semite of Nuremberg, has been appointed government commissioner for the region of Franconia. Streicher is the head of the Hago, Nazi organization for combating Jews in trade and industry, which recently proclaimed the anti-Jewish boycott. Nuremberg, under Streicher has been the scene of the worst excesses against the Jews.
An important victory was won for the Jews when the German government admitted its guilt in having unjustifiably dismissed a number of Jewish doctors in Upper Silesia merely because they were Jews. The Nazi government promised to reinstate the men at once and to pay them for the time they were unemployed. The case was tried before the Upper Silesian Mixed Commission of the League of Nations at Kattowice, Upper Silesia. The decision is regarded as being of the greatest importance because of the large number of cases of a similar nature still to be heard by the Mixed Commission.
Other news from Germany is primarily concerned with the major and minor calamities, which are the daily lot of the German Jew. The German Notables Association announces its intention of continuing to hunt for any members possessing Jewish blood. The “Aryan clause” is to be applied to the nursing profession. Jewish youth groups were forbidden to wear any kind of uniform or sword belt. A Nazi storm trooper was given an eight month jail sentence for having, while drunk, “insulted” three Turks by calling them “Jews” The prosecutor said he is outraged by such indiscipline.
The attempt of the Nazis to coordinate the Reichswehr, the regular German army, has hit a snag. The “Aryan clause” was introduced in the Reichswehr and all the Jews, or those descended from Jews, were to have been ousted by May 1. Owing to the opposition of the corps of officers there have been very few dismissals, despite the fact that a number of the higher officers are descendants of Jews. The attempt to replace “non-Aryans” with storm troopers has met the determined opposition of the regular army officers.
POLAND
Polish Jewry is outraged by the treatment of Polish Jewish tourists by the Palestine government and British officials in Warsaw Various obstacles are being put in the path of Polish Jews anxious to emigrate to Palestine. Under new regulations announced during the week even those in the capitalist category will have to liquidate their business, deposit 1,000 pounds with a Palestinian bank and then wait months for a visa. The University of Warsaw, closed some time ago after a brutal attack upon the aged Jewish dean of the history school, Professor Handelsmann, was reopened. Professor Handelsmann was prevailed upon to withdraw his resignation and return to his post.
The Endek students who assaulted Professor Handelsmann are to be tried on charges of assault against a state official. The punishment for this offense is five years in jail.
THE REST OF EUROPE
Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Fascist followers protested that they are not anti-Semites.
Austrian authorities banned a meeting of the Vienna Anti-Semite Association.
The Salonica newspaper Makedonia, party organ of former Premier Venizelos, began a venomous campaign against the Jews of Salonica, declaring that the government of Premier Tsaldaris has sold Salonica to the Jews.
A huge mass meeting in Paris passed a resolution urging the French government to dissolve the anti-Semitic organizations in France. Outstanding personalities in French public life spoke at the meeting. Before the meeting a number of clashes occurred between Royalist anti-Semites and Jewish groups. One anti-Semitic leader was badly hurt in one of the clashes.
Camelots du Roi, Royalist youth group, attacked Jewish newspaper vendors on the streets of Paris. Some twenty of the combatants on both sides were slightly injured.
A tight censorship has been clamped down on all news from Rumania. Reports are current that a plot with wide ramifications in the regular army and gendarmarie has been discovered for the assassination of King Carol and his Jewish sweetheart, Magda Lupescu. Madame Lupescu is reported to have fled from Rumania in fear of the triumphant Iron Guard.
The acquittal of the Iron Guard leaders and the complacent and even approving attitude of the military court which freed them is arousing the fears of the Jews of Rumania. The Rumanian militarists appear to be in complete agreement with the Iron Guard anti-Semites.
THE UNITED STATES
A meeting of 7,500 Hitlerite adherents in Brooklyn voted to boycott all American Jews participating in the boycott of German-made goods. Five hundred storm troopers in Hitlerite uniform and wearing swastika arm bands patrolled the meeting and maintained order. The meeting which was held under the auspices of the Friends of New Germany was an uproarious one. Various speakers attacked the Jews of the United States, particularly Samuel Untermyer and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise. Every mention of their names was vigorously hissed by the audience.
At the climax of the meeting when the audience was asked to vote their approval of a boycott against the Jews, it was voted unanimously. A series of minor clashes between Nazis and anti-Nazis took place outside the meeting hall. Four anti-Nazis were arrested.
In Chicago, former United States Senator James A. Reed of Missouri, addressing the anti-Nazi conference, denounced the Hitler regime in Germany. More than 1,500 delegates from thirty organizations in five mid-western states attended the conference.
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.
