Secretary of State Cordell Hull today received a delegation representing the leading rabbinical groups in the country and assured them that when the Axis powers are defeated the United States will be prepared not only to redeem the Jewish hopes of a future world based upon freedom, equality and justice, but to create a world in which the tragedy which the Jews are living through at present will not occur again.
The delegation, which submitted a memorandum to Mr. Hull asking the U.S. Government to continue its support “for the further implementation of the Balfour Declaration,” was also told by the Secretary of State that the Balfour Declaration has aroused wide attention in the United States, and that this country had followed with interest and sympathy the work which had been done under it, in which American citizens have played a useful part.
The delegation also called on Sir Gerald Campbell, British Minister in Washington, and submitted a memorandum declaring that whatever “the grievances of the Jewish people with respect to the restricted policies pursued, more particularly in recent years, and however profound the differences which exist at the moment, the issuance of the Declaration will live in the annals of our people as a memorable act of historic justice and statesmanship performed by a great people at its truest and noblest. ” The British Government is requested in the memorandum to continue” its good offices for the full and complete implementation” of the Balfour Declaration.
The delegation was composed of Dr. James G. Heller, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis; Rabbi B. Levinthal, presidium member of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America; Rabbi Louis Levitsky, president of the Rabbinical Assembly of America; and Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein, president of the Rabbinical Council of America. The rabbis stated that they represented not only them selves but the overwhelming majority of the American Rabbinate.
AMERICA IS OUTRAGED BY NAZI BARBARITIES AGAINST JEWS, HULL SAYS
Declaring that America has watched with sympathy the work which Jews have done in Palestine since the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, Secretary of State Cordell Hull added:
” This country was shocked and outraged, when tyranny and barbarity again commenced their march, at the brutality which was inflicted on certain races, and particularly on the Jewish populations of Europe. Apparently no form of abuse has been too great, and no form of torture or oppression too vile, to be meted out to these populations by the Nazi despots. And, in taking this attitude toward the Jewish race, they have made it plain by concrete acts that a like attitude would be taken towards any other race against whom they might invent a grievance. The Jews have long sought a refuge. I believe that we must have an even wider objective. We must have a world in which Jews, like every other race, are free to abide in peace and honor.
” Of all the inhuman and tyrannical acts of Hitler and his Nazi lieutenants, their systematic persecution of the Jewish people–men, women and children–is the most debased. The fate of these unhappy people must be ever before us in the efforts we are making today for the final victory. At the moment of triumph, under the terms of the Atlantic Charter, the United States will be prepared not only to redeem their hopes of a future world based upon freedom, equality and justice, but to create a world in which such a tragedy will not again occur, ” Mr. Hull concluded.
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.
