Rabbi Moshe Blau, head of the Palestine Agudath Israel, and Dr. Isaac Breuer, member of the organization’s world executive committee arrived here today on the United States liner Manhattan for their first visits to the United States. They will remain four months or more and will tour the country.
The purposes of their visit, Rabbi Blau told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview at the Broadway Central Hotel, are “(1) to extend the Agudah organization in the United States in view of the weakening of the Agudah in Europe by the recent catastrophic events, (2) to interest orthodox Jewish elements in aid for the Palestine Jews and (3) to seek financial aid for the Polish yeshivoth now in exile in Lithuania and elsewhere, and assistance for orthodox Jewry generally.”
“American Jewry,” Rabbi Blau said, “is now the only Jewish community able to extend assistance. One third of the Jews of the world live here, and it almost seems that destiny built this center of Jewish life in preparation for the present catastrophe.”
Their first visit to the United States is sponsored by the Agudath Israel and the Agudath Israel Youth Organization of this country, which are arranging a mass meeting for this weekend or early next week at which they will make their first public addresses. Arriving with Rabbi Blau and Dr. Breuer were William Fisher, general secretary of the Poalei Agudath Israel, orthodox labor movement in Palestine, and Dr. Jacob Hamburg, a leader of the same organization. Mr. Fisher said they were seeking support from America for the launching of Poalei Agudah settlement in the Negeb in southern Palestine to make room for absorption of orthodox refugees who, he said, formed the bulk of illegal immigrants in recent weeks.
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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.
