Opening the 20th national convention of the Zionist Organization of Canada, President A.J. Freiman today demanded greater assurance for the Zionist cause from Britain after the present war. He addressed about 500 delegates assembled at the Mount Royal Hotel.
“Our first thought now,” Freiman said, “is to do everything in our power to assure victory in this war for our great Empire, a victory that will forever destroy the power of those who seek to dominate the world. When the victory is won–as I know it will be won–we will carry on with new hope and vigor. The Balfour Declaration came out of the first Great War. We look forward to more encouragement and more assurance for the success of our cause out of the present war, for it is unthinkable that the first victims of Nazism will be overlooked when the injustices of the world are righted.”
He added that “in the happier world which Mr. Churchill sees, a happy, progressive Jewish national homeland in Palestine must have a distinct place.”
Speaking of the war in Palestine, Freiman asserted: “Let no man doubt that Britain’s enemies will meet a resistance both fierce and loyal should they try to set foot upon the sacred soil of that strategic British outpost.”
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, of the Jewish Agency Executive, asserted that “through Palestine, Jews are making a specific contribution to the waging of the war.” For the first time in centuries, he said, the Jews had “a homeland where we are able to defend our rights.”
Messages of greeting were read from Menachem M. Ussishkin, world president of the Jewish National Fund; Leib Jaffe, director of the Palestine Foundation Fund, who is now in South Africa, and Edmund I. Kaufmann, president of the Zionist Organization of America.
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.
