News Brief

A resolution on the present Zionist controversy was adopted by the Baltimore Zionist District Board.

The resolution, which was presented by a committee composed of Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron, Rabbi Adolph Coblenz and Joseph Allen, expressed regret for the recent resignations and called on Dr. Wise and others associated with him to state definitely and in detail the grounds for his opposition. “He owes it not only to himself but to the movement to which he has given so unstintingly of his energy and power to make clear what is at present a doubtful and untenable position. Until the statements are substantiated by indisputable facts, the Baltimore Zionist District Board stands unitedly behind Dr. Weizmann’s administration and calls upon the Zionists of the entire country to do the same,” the resolution declares.

“We further call uon all Zionist districts and Hadassah chapters in the Seaboard Region to maintain the necessary calm so vitally essential.

In a communication to the Jewish Daily Bulletin Jacob de Haas challenged the Zionist administration to make public the figures of the fully and partly paid up membership of the organization up to May 31, 1927, in comparison with the number of delegates who were elected to and attended the Atlanfic City Zionist convention in June, 1927.

Mr. de Haas also asked for the publication of figures of fully and partly paid up membership by cities and towns up to February 29, 1928. These figures are not to include the Hadassah, the Order Sons of Zion or any other affiliated body.

According to Mr. de Haas’s analysis, “the financial report and membership record submitted at the Atlantic City convention gives the receipts for regular dues to the Z.O.A. at $55, 195.02. The report shows 4,530 members paid for five months which is equivalent to $12,325, leaving a balance of $42,870 as the receipts for regular dues. This at $4. per year provides for 10,217 members, bringing the total membership of the Z.O.A. to 14,747. To this we may add 300 sustaining members covered by $7,312, leaving unexplained the membership involved in $2,612 membership for payment of back dues. These figures therefore in no way explain the record of 24,302 members plus the 4,530 members newly enrolled and accounted for.”

With regard to the general question of raising the issue of opposition, Mr. de Haas declares in his communication, “In order to keep the record straight, may I call the attention of your readers to the fact that no one interested in the task of bringing about reform in the American Zionist Organization rushed into the daily press or gave out any public statement prior to the attack made by the President of the Zionist Organization in announcing the resignations from the Administration Committee of Dr. Wise and two associates, Samuel J. Rosensohn and Lawrence Berenson. The attempt to overwhelm those who seek reform in American Zionism by the publication of all sorts of venomous personal attacks will unquestionably recoil on their own heads.”

A reply to the challenge of Mr. de Haas was made by Israel Maltin, auditor of the Zionist Organization. In his statement in which he characterizes Mr. de Haas’s analysis as “an amusing and amazing jumble of bad faith and worse arithmetic,” Mr. Maltin declares:

“Mr. de Haas declares that the Zionist Organization has only 14,747 members, which he bases upon a figure of $55,195.02, which he has abstracted from the total receipts of the Organization for membership dues, as made public in a certified financial statement published at the 1927 convention of the Zionist Organization.

“In opposing the present leadership of the Zionist Organization, Mr. de Haas has attempted to prove that while the membership was only 14,000 the leadership boosted the figure to a far greater number so as to ‘pack’ the Conventions with its henchmen.

“Mr. de Haas secured his figure of $55,000 from the official report. Mr. de Haas failed to mention, however, that the total receipts from membership were $157,860.69, as the report indicates. Since Mr. de Haas prefers to sequester the membership of the Hadassah and the Order Sons of Zion, the receipts for membership in the Organization amounted to $103,311.36. If this amount is divided by four (the fee for membership received at national headquarters), and if you deduct the sustaining members, it would appear that the Organization has 24,000 members. In addition, there are 2378 semiannual members, who pay only $2.00. This increases the membership by 1,189 to 25,189 members. In addition, there are members whose payments are delayed beyond the Convention period, which brings the total of membership in the Zionist Organization of America to 28,862.

“The figures which I have quoted from the financial report have been audited by Paul Loewenwarter & Co. Certified Public Accountants, 522 Fifth Avenue, New York City, who have been employed by the Zionist Organization since 1917, when Dr. de Haas was himself a member of the administration.

“It should be noted,” Mr. Maltin added, “that Mr. de Haas has not only impugned the honesty of the leadership, but also insinuated that practically every Zionist district has lent itself to these tactics. Districts know they are entitled to one delegate for every fifty members. The complete list of delegates is always published in The New Palestine. Every district which had more than its proper representation would therefore have known about it, and must, according to Mr. de Haas, have acquiesced in the ‘deal.’

“The truth of the matter is that the Zionist Organization is more strict than reasonable in these matters. In many instances, districts having as many as 49 members are not permitted a delegate, because they lack that one necessary member.”

The Flushing Free Synagogue announced that it had presented the pipe organ it used, before moving to its $250,000 new synagogue at Kissena Boulevard and Sanford Avenue, to the Church-on-the-Hill. Broadway, Flushing, a Dutch Reformed Church, which celebrated its first year on April 8.

The Rev. B.J. Folensbee, pastor of the Church-on-the-Hill, halled the gift as another evidence of the spirit of rellgious amity.