Prior to the opening of the Congress, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, veteran Zionist leader, former president of the World Zionist Organization and expected to be a leading candidate for the presidency, was named by the Actions Committee as the presiding officer of the nineteenth Congress. Named to the praesidium were the following: Joseph Sprinzak, Schlomo Kaplansky and Anselm Reiss, Laborites; Dr. Nahum Goldmann of the progressive Group “A” Zionists, and Dr. Leo Mossensohn of the Group “B” or conservative Zionists.
Following Dr. Sokolow’s opening address, Mr. McDonald spoke briefly, voicing the appreciation of himself and the League of Nations refugee commission of “what has been done and will be done by the Zionist Organization and the other bodies comprised in the Jewish Agency for the Jews entering Palestine from Germany.”
“I have sometimes said,” Mr. McDonald stated, “that our daily grace after meals should be ‘Thank God for Palestine.’ Without that homeland the prospect for the Jews in Germany during these last two and a half years would have been black indeed. It is a great thing that in these days when the doors of nearly all countries, the biggest and the smallest, are almost entirely closed against immigration, Palestine should have been able to give a home to some 30,000 Jews from Germany.”
Mr. McDonald revealed that he had several conversations with the Colonial Secretary about the position in Palestine, and also with High Commissioner Wauchope.
“I still hope,” he concluded, “that before I lay down my office I shall have the opportunity of going to Palestine, and seeing with my own eyes what is so vivid in my mind, this combined Jewish people.”
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.
