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Rabbinical Assembly Hits British Policy, Backs Zionist Cooperation

June 11, 1937
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Continued Zionist co-operation with the Palestine government, “de spite the many disappointments we suffered at the hands of British officialdom” there, was indorsed yesterday at the concluding session of the thirty-seventh annual conference of the Rabbinical Assembly of America.

The 200 rabbis who attended the three-day conference at the Jewish Theological Seminary adopted a “Pronouncement on Zionism” in which they listed many complaints against British officials, in Palestine, charging they had violated the spirit and letter of the Balfour declaration and that their laxity was responsible for violent disturbances there, but concluding with an expression of faith in “the traditional British sense of justice.”

The rabbis charged the Palestine government with laxity in carrying out mandate provisions for a survey of the country, distribution of free land, and support of Jewish educational and health institutions. They advocated promotion of better understanding between Jews and Arabs, asserting that Zionist development of the country benefitted the Arabs.

Irreligion in labor organizations was deplored by the conference, which hailed the appearance in Palestine of the Hapoel Hamizrachi, religious labor movement.

The conference adopted a resolution of its social justice committee urging the United States government to explore the possibilities of an international peace-preservation parley.

Dr. Simon Greenberg, of Philadelphia, was elected president of the conference; Dr. Max Artz, of Scranton, Pa., vice-president; Rabbi Leon S. Lang, of Newark, N.J., treasurer; and Rabbis Arthur H. Neulandor and Ralph Simon, of New York, secretaries.

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