Bernard S. Deutsch, president of the American Jewish Congress, and candidate for the Independent Party for the Supreme Court, was honored on Sunday evening at a testimonial dinner in the Hotel Commodore, attended by more than 1,000 friends and associates in Jewish communal service and in the legal profession.
The dinner resolved itself into a forum to plead the urgency of convening a world Jewish congress, such as is projected in the summer of 1934. This theme was reiterated in the addresses of all the speakers who included Lord Snell of Plumstead; Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress; Mark Eisner, Chairman of the Board of Higher Education of New York and Mr. Deutsch. George Z. Medalie, United States Attorney, who was chairman of the dinner committee, presided.
Messages of greeting were received from Professor Albert Einstein, Senator William E. Borah, Lord Melchett, Chairman of the British Committee for a World Jewish Congress; Dr. Nahum Goldmann of Berlin and Morris Rothenberg, president of the Zionist Organization of America.
Endorsement of the world Jewish congress idea was offered by Professor Einstein. “May the 1934 World Jewish Congress ideal which Mr. Deutsch has so effectively furthered, contribute to strengthen the solidarity of threatened European Jewry,” Professor Einstein’s message declared.
Lord Snell, who was the author of the Minority Report of the Shaw Commission on the Palestine riots of 1929, spoke of conditions in Palestine and other parts of the world and severely scored anti-Semitism.
Of Palestine he said there is great reason for the Jews to be comforted. Arab-Jewish relations are improving through association. A talk with the present High Commissioner for Palestine was encouraging owing to the hopeful attitude of Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope and his clear cut view of what the possibilities are. Sir Arthur, he stated, admires the spirit of the Jewish pioneers.
Openly favoring a World Jewish Congress, Lord Snell said: “A people that has not the will to defend itself against outrage is a people that must ever be subject to persecution.”
He scored the “discreditable revival of anti-Semitism in Europe. Something is wrong about it whatever your view of life. It is not the way of progress,” he asserted and called upon Europe to carry out not “a pogrom but a program.”
“In addition to improving tolerance, it is necessary to improve the status of the Jew everywhere—to give him a home,” Lord Snell asserted.
Rabbi Wise described conditions in Europe as an earnest of the serious need in which world Jewry stands today for an organized and representative spokesman. He attacked those who oppose the world congress idea as “super-optimists or assimilationists.”
He cited the case of Poland as a typical example of the situation which confronts Jewry. “In Poland,” he said, “the statement of the recently arrived Ambassador is virtually an announcement of governmental abdication—to declare that the government dared not act more vigorously against the student hooligans attacking young Jews lest the former be provoked to further violence.”
He scored the “dollar inquisition in Soviet Russia.”
The world Jewish congress must be established by us in conjunction with public opinion, he asserted. “We are prepared to resign to leaders who believe in human kindness and the democratic spirit,” Rabbi Wise said.
“Vast changes are in store for the whole civilized world,” said Mr. Medalie. “The Jewish people are strenuously affected by these changes and must adjust themselves to the new conditions by organized efforts behind which must stand all the resources of Jewry.”
Mr. Medalie then told of the necessity for organized effort to defend Jews robbed of religious liberty, and economic, academic, and political freedom.
“We have never had a congress composed primarily of Jews, motivated with the purpose of presenting an exalted program inspiring to action the nations of the world,” said Mr. Eisner. “Perhaps I am visionary when I say that the time may be very near at hand when a Jewish Congress might exert a world-wide influence and continue in an effective way Israel’s traditional message in life.”
In urging the world Jewish Congress idea, Mr. Deutsch declared that “nearly eight million Jews in European countries are affected by the virus of anti-Semitism which thrives unchecked by any concerted attempt on the part of our Christian brethren to stamp out this barbaric relic of the Middle Ages.”
The sum of $12,000 was raised for the American Jewish Congress.
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