The nineteenth World Zionist Congress which concluded Tuesday in Lucerne, was a great demonstration of Zionist unity, the first batch of American delegates returning from the Congress unanimously declared yesterday in a special interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The delegates who returned on the Conte di Savoia, represented the laborite faction at Lucerne. They are Isaac Hamlin, national secretary of the Palestine Labor Committee in America and one of the leaders of the American laborite delegation, Dr. Samuel Wohl of Cincinnati, president of the American League for Labor Palestine, Pinchas Cruso, Secretary of the League, Rabbi Edward
Israels and Dr. Herman Seidel of Baltimore, and Charles Brenman of Montreal.
Asked about the transfer agreement with Germany, Hamlin stated that American Jews had a wrong picture of Haavara, the Palestine Trustee Office for the execution of the pact. “Only when all the facts of the agreement and the function of Haavara were explained to us at the Congress,” he said, “did we realise that whatever various elements may say about it for their own party reasons, Haavara is a valuable instrument for saving not only the capital of German Jews, but the Jews of Germany as well.”
Hamlin, who also visited Palestine before the Congress, gave a glowing account of the country’s progress. “Having been in Palestine five years ago,” he said, “I was astounded at the change in tempo and in the manner of work that has taken place there. It is nothing short of miraculous. At the same time,” he emphasized, “we Jews in America are apt to have a wrong idea about the so-called prosperity. This prosperity has enriched only a certain class of real-estate proprietors and speculators. But Palestine itself, still requires considerable development and tremendous national, funds.”
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.
