Between the Lines

The decision adopted in Paris by the Executive Committee of the World Jewish Congress not to hold the Congress in 1935 and again to postpone it for a later year did not come as a surprise to those who know what is going on behind the scenes of the World Jewish Congress.

Though it is explained that the reason for postponing the Congress lies in the complications which have arisen in America and which have necessitated the American Jewish Congress to call its extraordinary session in Philadelphia on March 16, this is not the actual reason.

THE REAL REASON

The real reason for not holding the World Jewish Congress in 1935 lies in the hidden opposition of the Zionists. A number of Zionist leaders, though openly participating in the preparations for the World Jewish Congress, are nevertheless against this gathering, since such a Congress would be in competition to the Zionist Congress.

The first open quarrel between certain Zionist leaders participating in the Executive Committee of the World Jewish Congress in Paris and a number of Executive members who are not Zionists took place this month long before it was decided to postpone the Congress. The Zionists insisted that the World Jewish Congress should be postponed in order that it should not coincide with the Nineteenth Zionist Congress, which is definitely taking place this year. Two international Jewish gatherings cannot be held in the same year, they pointed out.

THE ZIONIST THREAT

The serious differences of opinion which arose between the Zionists and the non-Zionists in the Executive of the World Jewish Congress in Paris resulted in a threat to the non-Zionists, that in Poland and in other countries the Zionists would obstruct the elections to the World Jewish Congress if they coincide with the elections to the Zionist Congress.

This threat, coupled with the decision of the American Jewish Congress to also postpone its democratic elections to the World Jewish Congress from April 28 to a later date, gave the final blow. The non-Zionists in the Paris Executive have seen in the American decision a plot between the Zionist leaders in Paris and some of the Zionist members of the American Jewish Congress in New York.

A NEW IDEA BORN

This suspicion about the role played by certain Zionists in America with regard to the World Jewish Congress idea has provoked a bitter feeling among the non-Zionists in the Paris executive. It is due to this feeling that an idea was born to give up altogether the project of calling a World Jewish Congress and to concentrate instead on the creation of a Board of Jewish Deputies in France, along the same lines as the Board of Jewish Deputies existing in England.

Whether such a Board will or will not be established in Paris, one thing is, however, certain: in the silent internal fight between the Zionists and the non-Zionists, the former won their aim. The World Jewish Congress will not be held this year. And—who knows? Maybe it will never be held.