A demand for the incorporation of Jerusalem into the territory of Israel and its creation as the capital of the Jewish state was voiced here today at the meeting of the Zionist Actions Committee. The demand was made by Dr. Bernard Joseph, military governor of Jerusalem.
Dr. Joseph asserted that “after Bernadotte proposed to convert Jerusalem into an Arab city we are fully entitled to demand its incorporation.” During the subsequent debate Rabbi Meir Berlin, Mizrachi leader, more cautiously associated himself with Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok’s point of view that the entire problem of internationalizing the city must be reconsidered. Revisionist leader Meir Grossman demanded Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the center of the Zionist movement.
Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, in a broadcast last night over the Jerusalem radio praised the stand of the inhabitants of the city against the Arab military attacks, “The Jewish victims,” he said, “proved to everybody that Jerusalem shall forever remain the heart of the Jewish people and the renewed state.” The Jews will never agree to hand over Jerusalem to the Arabs, he warned. He concluded that the biggest fight for Jerusalem will start with the opening of the forthcoming U.N. General Assembly session in Paris next month. He also expressed the hope that the city would become Israel’s capital.
ELECTION OF NEW EXECUTIVE IS MAIN ISSUE AT COMMITTEE SESSION
As the general debate continued in the Actions Committee session it became abundantly clear that the main issue of the parley will be the election of a new executive of the policy making body. Much of the behind-the-scenes negotiations and meeting has already begun. One proposal which has gained some support provides for keeping the same membership of the executive, except for replacement of those members who hold portfolios in the Israeli Cabinet. Supporters of this proposal fear that if a new executive is elected it may be necessary to include Revisionists, disturbing the present coalition which controls the executive.
Dr. Silver, in an address to the session, welcomed the recent appointment of James G. MacDonald as head of the special U.S. mission to Israel as a “definite gesture of goodwill and friendly cooperation” on the part of the U.S. Government, Speaking of the work of the Zionist movement in the U.S., he declared that the “largest Jewish community in the world, in the most important political and economic center in the world, stands ready to assume its full share in all future activities of the World Zionist Organization whose work will now of necessity have to be reorganized and redistributed.”
He added that “the scope of the American section of the Jewish Agency, which has served our movement not unworthily in recent years, should be enlarged, in order to marshall the vast potentials of talent and resources — well organized, alert and politically mature — of American Jewry for maintaining and developing a powerful world Zionist movement dedicated to the defense and development of Israel.”
Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the World Confederation of General Zionists, insisted that the center of the Zionist movement must be in Europe or in New York. He defended his proposal on the grounds of practicality. He also spoke of the importance of the political activities of American Jewry.
Eliahu Dobkin, head of the Jewish Agency Immigration Department, and Moshe Shapiro, Health and Immigration Minister, reported on various immigration problems. Dobkin outlined the major problems as: speeding immigration; finding new ways of mobilizing funds; Zionist education among the Jews in the rest of the world; and, the establishment of an all-embracing Zionist organization in which “every Jew can find a place.”
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.
