“Land sales Gimmel,” or Jewish acquisition of land in Palestine despite the new British restrictions on such transactions, were held out as a possibility today.
This aspect of the situation had been brought to light by speakers at a mass meeting of 3,000 persons at Carnegie Hall last night, sponsored by the American Emergency Committee for Palestine, held to protest against the land ordinance. The new phrase designating illegal land purchases was coined by Dr. Stephen S. Wise who declared defiantly:
“Months ago Colonial Secretary McDonald announced restrictions against immigration Well, we have had an Aliyah Beth (illegal immigration). Now we are going to have land sales to Jews and we will call them land sales Gimmel.”
Possibilities for continued legal purchase of land were also pointed out by Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the Jewish National Fund of America, who stressed the fact that Jewish buying was unrestricted in Western Galilee, where the colonies of Hanita and Khirbet Semakh are located, and where a new settlement was established the other day.
A hopeful note was likewise sounded by Jewish Agency President Chaim Weizmann in a farewell to American Jewry which he telegraphed to the meeting. Dr. Weizmann offered “a word of reassurance,” declaring the present British policy “stands condemned and will fall under the weight of its own injustice,” and that “the forward march in Palestine will not be stopped by what will inevitably become a scrap of paper.” Dr. Weizmann is scheduled to leave for Europe by Pan-American Clipper tomorrow from Baltimore, ending a 2-month visit here.
A message from the Pro-Palestine Federation voiced support of the fight against the new restrictions and declared that the United States “has the indisputable right to counsel the cancellation of the new discriminatory anti-Jewish land laws and refuse recognition of any drastic modifications involving violation of the Mandate.”
Speakers at the rally included Mrs. Moses P. Epstein, former national president of Hadassah; Rabbi Wolf Gold, chairman of the world executive of the Mizrachi Organization; Haim Greenberg, Labor Zionist leader; and Louis Lipsky, former Z.O.A. president, who presided. At the start of the meeting a colorful procession of boys and girls who had been picketing the British consulate trooped into the hall dressed in uniforms of Zionist youth organizations, carrying placards denouncing the land ordinance and singing Hebrew marching songs.
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.
