Emphasizing that “danger is approaching Palestine” and that “tens of thousands of Jews demands the right to fight in Palestine,” Leibe Jaffe, director of the Palestine Foundation Fund in Jerusalem, who has arrived in the United States on his way from London to Palestine, appealed today at a press conference that American Jewry “more than ever take on itself the responsibility for the fate and future of the Jewish people.”
Jaffe, who spent three-and-a-half months in England in a campaign to raise funds for the defense and upbuilding of Palestine, praised the British Jews for the role they play in the present struggle. There are tens of thousands of Jews in the forces, “he said.” There is a great percentage of them in the A.B.P. and other essential services. Some of them have been decorated for bravery. The Jewish districts in London and the provincial centers have suffered terribly. The famous Whitechapel has gone through the ordeal of bombardment, but, as with other sections of the British people, they carry on with courage and determination.”
Revealing that despite the war situation in England, he succeeded in raising over £87,000 for Palestine, Jaffe said the Zionists in England did not for a moment cease their work for Palestine despite the fact that none of them knew if he would survive the next night.
Speaking about the role which American Jews are expected to play in the present emergency for Palestine, Jaffe said: “The danger is approaching Palestine. We do not know what the coming days may bring. Property can be destroyed, lives can be extinguished, but nobody can destroy the eternal covenant of the Jewish people with Erets Israel; nobody can extinguish the immortal love of the Jewish people for their land.” Nearly all of European Jewry is destroyed. We lost the best countries which helped us to build Palestine. The great Jewry of America, which enjoys freedom and an undisturbed life, must now replace the Jewries of other countries and must more than ever take on itself the responsibility for the fate and future of the Jewish people. The eyes of the Jews in all the world are turned to American Jewry.”
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.
