Funeral services will be held tomorrow at the Free Synagogue here for Judge Julian W. Mack, prominent Jewish leader who retired in 1941 as judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals after a brilliant career of thirty-eight years on the bench. He died at his home at the age of 77.
An exponent of democracy in Jewish community life as well as in national affairs, Judge Mack was an ardent supporter of the American Jewish Congress, and upon its formation in 1917 was elected its first president. He was the first chairman of the Committee of Jewish Delegations at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 which secured national minority rights for Jews in European countries. Since 1914 he has been closely identified with the Zionist movement and was the president of the Zionist Organization of America from 1918 to 1921, later becoming its honorary president. He twice visited Palestine, and in 1941 a colony in Palestine. Ramath Ha’shofeth, was named in his honor.
Born in San Francisco, Judge Mack was graduated from Harvard University and also studied at the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig. He was a professor of law at Northwestern University and at the University of Chicago, prior to his appointment to the bench.
The full scope of Judge Mack’s many-sided interest in Jewish life is indicated by the fact that he was president of the National Conference of Jewish Charities for several years; he was the first president, in 1917, of the national organization of the Y.M.H.A. and the Y.W.H.A.; honorary chairman of the United Jewish Appeal and the United Palestine Appeal; president of the Palestine Endowment Fund, Inc., and on the Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation; chairman of the board of trustees of the Jewish Institute of Religion and a member of the board of governors of the Hebrew University and Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem. Also, he was honorary president of the American Economic Committee for Palestine and honorary chairman of the American Representatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
BELIEVED ARAB-JEWISH QUESTION CAN BE SOLVED; OPPOSED WHITE PAPER
Deeply interested in Jewish life in Palestine, Judge Mack was among the most vigorous opponents of the British White Paper under which Jewish immigration to Palestine is to cease next March. “Leaders of thought and action in Great Britain,” he said in a recent statement, “have already protested against the White Paper as being in complete conflict both with the letter and the spirit of the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration. From that paper we must appeal to the inherent sense of justice and fair dealings of the British people. Great Britain has never yet and in my judgment never will proclaim or accept the doctrine that its international undertakings are to be treated as mere scraps of paper.
“The Arab question is capable of solution,” Judge Mack said. “The Jew have never desired to dominate, either in Palestine or elsewhere. They have asked only that they be not dominated. If the mandatory power will but carry out the part assigned to it under the letter and the spirit of the Mandate, through officials in Palestine sympathetic thereto, the Jews and the Arabs of the Holy Land will be give the best incentive for full cooperative action.”
Judge Mack’s guiding credo in his efforts on behalf of the Jews the world over was; “We ask no more for the Jew than we do for anybody else.”
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.
