President Roosevelt and the U.S. Government were asked to make the necessary shipping available to transport to Palestine Jews who can now emigrate from Europe, in a resolution adopted here last night at the closing session of the National Conference for Palestine sponsored by the United Palestine Appeal.
The 700 delegates attending the conference also adopted a resolution urging American Jews to dedicate themselves to reaching a $30,000,000 goal in 1945 for agencies receiving their funds through the United Palestine Appeal.
Other resolutions demand a special United Nations fund for the resettlement of homeless Jews in the post-Hitler period and point out that the transplanting of Jews who will want to go to Palestine at the end of the war should have the full support of the governments of the world.
The conference urged that the British White Paper be annulled; that no restrictions be imposed on Jewish immigration to Palestine; that Jews should have the right to purchase land in Palestine on the same basis as other residents, and that the world powers should recognize the existence of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, a member of the executive of the Jewish Agency, who returned last week from Palestine, told the delegates that Palestinian Jewry has “reached a stage, economically, socially, politically and morally where it regards itself as an autonomous state, able to run its own affairs.” The visitor to Palestine today, he said, “finds himself in a de facto Jewish state, fully developed in all the aspects and expressions of a state, but without status and international recognition.” He called for recognition by the peoples of the world of Palestine as a Jewish Common wealth.
Henry Monsky, president of the B’nai B’rith, said that “it is to be regretted that the Jews of America were lacking in the vision and the statesmanship 25 years ago to embrace with unreserved enthusiasm the Palestine program.” That lack of vision, he stated, was a grievous mistake. “You may think of Palestine as a Jewish Common wealth, a National Home, a haven of refuge, a cultural center, or you may think of it according to any other concept; this is indisputable. The agencies devoted to the upbuilding and reconstruction of Palestine command the respect and are entitled to the support of every Jew interested in the problems of his people. To support the program is an inescapable responsibility,” he declared.
Declaring that the basic question of Palestine’s absorptive capacity is inexorably linked to the acquisition of new land areas for settlement. Judge Morris Rothenberg, president of the Jewish National Fund, said that the reclamation of large tracts of land through scientific irrigation methods will provide for the absorption of an additional 2,000,000 Jews in Palestine.
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.
