democratic elections were withdrawn.
The session opened under the chairmanship of Dr. Stephen S. Wise and was addressed by Prince Hubertus von Loewenstein, who in a spirited appeal urged the Jews of the world to unite against the Nazi forces and to isolate Hitlerism.
SEES ‘ROMAN HOLIDAY’
"It is altogether possible,"—Prince Loewenstein predicted,— "that the Hitler regime will make a Roman holiday of the Jews in order to divert the population from its own gangsterism.
"The recent statements made by Dr. Schacht and Herr Lippert with regard to the Jews are nothing but a continuation of gangster tactics, of professing to take one half a step backward after having taken three steps forward," Prince Loewenstein continued. In actuality the Jewish situation in Germany has gone from bad to worse and will continue to grow worse."
The necessity of convoking a world Jewish congress was affirmed in principle in the report submitted by the administrative committee.
SUMMARY OF REPORT
The report, read by Louis Lipsky, recommended:
1. The abolition of direct election of delegates to the American Jewish Congress.
2. To construct an all-inclusive body of Jewry, through which existing national and local organizations might achieve representation in the Congress, instead of the abolished electoral system.
3. That the activities of the American Jewish Congress should be financed by a method of self taxation and assessment rather than by donation.
After the opposition expressed by a number of delegates from the floor against the recommendations, a compromise was reached by which they were referred to a special committee. The modified report, however, was to be read again later, before the entire assembly.
Leading the opposition was Louis Segal. Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, presenting the ideology of the labor bloc, was one of the principal speakers at the opening session. Other speakers included Prof. Ettlinger of the University of Texas, and Dr. Harry Friedenwald.
Rabbi Wise, in his opening speech, paid tribute to Baron Edmund de Rothschild, Victor Jacobson, Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, Dr. Leo Motzkin, Chief Rabbi Angelo Saccerdoti, Chaim Nachman Bialik and other Jewish leaders who have died since the last meeting of the Congress, in April, 1933.
REVIEWS 2 YEARS OF HITLER
Bernard S. Deutsch, president, who presided at the morning session today, gave a review of the first two years of Hitlerism which has affected "a return to the barbarism of the Middle Ages and seeks the conquest of the universe."
The report submitted to the assembly by the Administrative Committee covers conditions of Jewish life in Germany, Austria, Poland, Rumania, Lithuania, Latvia and the United States.
"In all these countries, there is a Jewish problem. In the United States this problem is just beginning to emerge," it says. "In the lands of Eastern Europe, fifty percent of the Jews are on the verge of economic collapse. A process of economic strangulation is going on in Eastern Europe, which has brought about the withdrawal of virtually all those rights which were recognized as just only after the World War. For the Jew the emancipation period has ended. The walls of the medieval ghetto are being rebuilt around them in vitrually all the lands of the Eastern world."
CITES NAZI IMPORT DROP
Dr. Joseph Tannenbaum, reporting on the boycott of Nazi goods in the United States, declared that imports from Germany have decreased, from 1932 to 1934, fully twenty-five per cent. While in 1932 the import of German goods to America constituted twenty-one per cent of the total imports, it reached only sixteen per cent in 1934, he stated.
An interesting report on Jewish immigration possibilities was read at the morning session by Harold Fields. Mr. Fields told the Congress that the only possible hope for Jewish immigration lies in Biro-Bidjan, in New Zealand and in the northwestern part of Canada, if the authorities there will agree to admit Jews. Mass immigration elsewhere is impossible, Mr. Fields pointed out.
REPORTS ON BIAS HERE
Rabbi J. Cohen, in reporting at the session on economic discrimination in the United States, emphasized that many firms are refusing to employ Jews.
"If the Jew is not to remain within the pale of marginal workers, the last to be hired and the first to be fired, then we must revive our campaign of educating the big employing executives to the realization that workers should be selected without regard to any other factors than those of the technical qualifications required by the job," Rabbi Cohen declared.
Speakers at the afternoon session included Abraham Goldberg, Dr. A. Coralnik and Leo Herman.
Morris Rothenberg, president of the Zionist Organization of America, speaking "for Zionists who helped to found the American Jewish Congress," praised the work of the Congress and declared that Palestine today is "the most promising hope for the future of the Jews.
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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.
