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Zionists Hold Palestine Alone Can’t Solve Problem in Reich

June 12, 1935
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The Juedische Rundschau, official organ of the German Zionist Federation, takes up in a leading article the suggestion made in the Voelkischer Beobachter that Zionism provides the solution of the Jewish problem in Germany through wholesale emigration to Palestine.

"Large sections of the Jewish youth will have to look for a place in Palestine," it writes. "We do not underrate the importance of the transformation created as a result of this in the life of the individual. But, however much we may desire to win over the strongest and most valuable part of the Jewish Community for the tremendous upbuilding work in Palestine, we do not overlook the fact that it is a long and a far road that we have to go to attain the goal. It cannot be achieved at one blow.

SEES DIFFICULTIES

"This fact," the Rundschau article continues, "brings consequences in its train, both for the State authorities in regulating emigration in a way that will avoid misconceptions, and in regulating Jewish affairs in other respects, and also insofar as it affects inner Jewish differences.

"There is no longer any section of German Jewry that fails to recognize, under the force of circumstances, the importance of Palestine, but they will not see that the fact that every young Jew is a potential Palestine immigrant, fundamentally influences the entire formation of Jewish life and the conception of the Diaspora. It must become the basis of all educational training and of Jewish life.

"It is therefore no cheap exploitation of the situation on the part of Zionists when we ask that we should have an influence on all those branches of administration which have to deal with these matters.

REFERS TO PROGRAM

"If people say that the Zionists do not take into sufficient account the interests of the Jews who live here in Germany and will remain in Germany, we declare that so far as the Jews living in Germany are concerned, whatever their Jewish views may be, their interests must be equally protected, and a program along these lines was laid down in this paper two months ago, set out in the manner of four points.

"It would be too primitive to attempt to present the situation as if our aim were simply ’emigration.’ It means the acceptance of Judaism, and of the consoling realization that something new is in the process of growth which imposes big demands upon Jews.

"Jews will have to continue to live together with other people," the Juedische Rundschau declares. "Jewish history in the past has often been a history of emigration. In recent times we have experienced the emigration of millions of Russian Jews to America. When we realize the emigration need of the pauperized masses of Polish Jewry and the slight openings for immigration that exist, we see how acute the present crisis is. We are constantly hearing tales of the misery in which the Jewish emigrants live in other countries, and a return of even totally non-political emigrants from Germany is not desired,

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