Palestine Jewry’s response to Foreign Minister Bevin’s statement today in Commons was given tonight by the Jewish National Council which called a general strike for tomorrow.
The strike will begin at noon and continue until midnight. During these hours all Jews will stay off the streets, and Jewish schools, shops, offices and factories will close down. Urban and inter-urban traffic will be suspended.
The strike will also take in all Government and military plants where Jews are employed and places of entertainment. Only persons possessing “curfew passes” issued by Jewish institutions will be allowed to appear in the streets. The strike and the curfew will not affect hospitals, the water system or electricity plants.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Jewish youths today demonstrated in Tel Aviv streets shouting “We demand immigration, colonization and defence.” At the same time the Chief (##)bbinate of Palestine proclaimed this Thursday as a day of fasting and prayers.
“WE WILL NOT YIELD.” JEWISH LEADERS TELL ACTING HIGH COMMISSIONER
An extraordinary session of the Jewish National Assembly will be convoked next Monday to determine the official attitude of the Jewish community. A special meeting of members of the Jewish Agency executive from the United States, England and Palestine has been called for November 25. The meeting will be attended by all Zionist members of the executive, except Dr. Chaim “eizmann, Dr. Stephen S. Wise and Prof. Solig Brodetsky.
Following the Agency’s meeting, a session of the Zionist Actions Committee will take place for the purpose of endorsing the decisions which the Agency executive session will adopt. It was predicted today that the entire executive of the Agency may resign.
A Jewish leader told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “strikes, curfews and other immediate actions are only a prelude to the coming reaction.” The next logical step, he said, might be launching of a policy of complete non-cooperation with the British and Palestine Governments.
It is very doubtful, he added, whether in face of “this severe blow” to Jewish leadership that it will be able to control the situation “and we will have to struggle to maintain discipline.”
Late tonight, the JTA learned that the Agency representatives to whom Acting High Commissioner John V. M. Shaw formally presented Bevin’s statement of policy unanimously declared: “We will not consent. We will not yield.”
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.
