Jewish Communities in Europe, Palestine and Latin America Mourn Death of Roosevelt

Cables received today by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from its correspondents in Europe, Palestine and Latin American countries report that special services were held during the week-end by Jewish communities throughout the world in memory of President Roosevelt.

In Palestine, the Chief Rabbinate, the Jewish Agency, the Jewish Federation of Labor, the Tel Aviv municipality and other Jewish bodies cabled messages of condolence to the U. S. Government and to Mrs. Roosevelt, emphasizing the hopes which the Jews of Palestine had placed on Mr. Roosevelt in their struggle for the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth. Every Jewish institution in the all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv flew the Jewish flag black-framed and at half-mast.

In London, memorial services were held on Saturday in practically all synagogues, with speakers emphasizing the great loss the Jewish people suffered in the sudden death of President Roosevelt.

In Paris, special memorial services were held today in Rothschild Synagogue. A solemn throng, composed almost equally of soldiers and civilians, attended. Officiating rabbis paid tribute to Mr. Roosevelt as a friend of the Jewish people and France. Eigh French officials and U. S. Ambassador Caffery were among those present.

Similar services were held in Bucharest. The Chief Rabbi of Rumania and leaders of all central Jewish bodies sent messages of sympathy to Mrs. Roosevelt through the U. S. mission in Rumania.

In a telegram to Ambassador Winant, Prof. Selig Brodestky, president of the Board of Deputies, of British Jews asked him to convey to the American people its grief, adding, “By the Jewish people he will always be remembered for his outspoken denunciation of racial and religious hatred, his untiring championship of the persecuted sufferers of Nazi and fascist tyranny and for his profound, practical sympathy with the aspirations and hopes of the Jewish people centered around a national home in Palestine.”

The Canadian Jewish Congress and the United Zionist Council of Canada yesterday sent messages to Mrs. Roosevelt expressing their grief at the death of a loyal friend of the Jewish people. Samuel Bronfman, president of the Congress, also sent a wire to President Truman assuring him of the “prayers and good will of the Jews of this Dominion.”

In Havana, the Jewish Central Committee of Cuba held a Roosevelt memorial meeting today attended by almost the entire Jewish population. The meeting was addressed by leaders of the Jewish community, editors of local Jewish newspapers and by prominent American Jews now visiting Cuba.

In New York, all leading synagogues held memorial services. The American Zionist Emergency Council arranged a special service at which leaders of the Zionist Organization of America, of the Mizrachi and of the Hadassah expressed the hope that President Truman would follow closely in the footsteps of Frankling D. Roosevelt.

Acting on the call of the National Council of Young Israel, seventy branch synagogues of the Council throughout the United States congregated today for special prayer and expressions of mourning at the hour of President Roosevelt’s interment.