American and European Leaders Go into Session on Palestine’s Economic Problems

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The best minds of American and European Jewry. Zionists and non-Zionists are being applied to find a solution for the economic problems which are connected with the upbuilding of Palestine as a Jewish National Home, under the terms of the Mandate of the League of Nations intrusted to Great Britain, at the sessions of the Non-Partisan Palestine Survey Commission of the Jewish Agency which began today at the country home of Alfred, Lord Mond, at Melchet, near Southampton.

The Commission which will consider reports of many experts including some of the United States Government departments, has no official status insofar as the British Government is concerned. The work of the Commission, however, has been carried out with the closet cooperation of the Palestine Government and the British Colonial Office. British Government circles have displayed great interest in the result of the deliberations, which will formulate definite recommendations for the economic upbuilding of Palestine under the mandate of Great Britain.

The Marquis of Reading, former Viceroy of India, Lord Mond, Louis Marshall, president of the American Jewish Committee; Felix M. Warburg, New York banker and philanthropist; Dr. Lee K. Frankel, vice-president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; Herr Oscar Wassermann, presidnt of the Deutsche Reichsbank of Berlin; and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization are participating in the deliberations.

European Zionists and the Jewish public generally are following with great interest the proceedings of this conference, which marks the first time that outstanding Jewish leaders of both hemispheres have met to further the cause of the upbuilding of Palestine.

Zionist leaders recalled today the humble origins of the Zionist movement thirty years ago, under the leadership of Dr. Theodor Herzl, when the outstanding Jewish philanthropists of that day, Baron Manrice de Hirsch and Baron Edmond de Rothschild, ridiculed the idea. The conference of the American and European leaders at Melchet is viewed as a great event in the history of the Jewish efforts to reclaim Palestine and as the beginning of making the Palestine problem one of all Jewry instead of being confined to the members of the Zionist organizations.

The Los Angeles United Jewish Appeal for 1928 will be launched at a banquet on June 13. Aaron Sapiro will be the principal speaker. A mass meeting will be held in the Trinity Auditorium, at which time Dr. Schmarya Levin, will speak. The officers of the Los Angeles campaign are Irving H. Hellman, State Chairman; Marco R. Newmark, Los Angeles, Chairman, and I. Irving Lipstich, Secretary.

The pre-campaign efforts have resuited in the forming of a Jewish Service Council, representing all Los Angeles organizations, which will be the chief instrument for the enrolling workers in the campaign. A quota of $200,000 for fifteen philanthropic and cultural agencies in America and abroad is being sought.