American Jewish Committee Submits Views to U.S. Government on Post-war Rights for Jews

The American Jewish Committee will seek to secure in the peace terms “re-affirmation of the fundamental principle that Jewish citizens of every land, fulfilling their obligation of complete loyalty to their respective countries, shall be guaranteed the correlative right of complete equality,” Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, president of the Committee, announced today.

The first step in what he termed “this essential endeavor” has been taken,” Judge Proskauer disclosed, in a letter to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, proffering to the government the cooperation of the Committee in the formulation of peace terms which will help meet the post-war needs of the shattered Jewish communities overseas. He said also that the Committee had filed with the Department of State a Declaration of Views setting forth the basic premises for the maintenance of Jewish rights.

In his letter to Mr. Hull, Judge, Proskauer pointed out that after the last war the Committee devoted its efforts to secure in the peace terms provisions to prevent the infraction of the rights of Jews in any part of the world, to give assistance and to take remedial action in the event of threatened or actual restriction of such nights, and to obtain for all Jews equal civic, economic and educational opportunities. At the end of this war, he wrote to Mr. Hull, it is the Committee’s aim “to aid in the formulation of peace terms which will secure world in which Jews, like all others, are, in a phrase admirably used by you, ‘free to abide in peace and in honor.'” He decided the Committee’s Declaration of Views filed with the State Department that “we have a special concern with the salvation of suffering people and the preservation of the Jewish community as a spiritual force.”

COMMITTEE ON PEACE PROBLEMS FORMED; WILL STUDY REHABILITATION OF JEWS

Simultaneously, Judge Proskeuer announced the formation of a Committee on Pace Problems of the American Jewish Committee to study and draw up measures for the rehabilitation of Jews and the restoration of their civic and economic rights.

Comprising Jewish community leaders from all parts of the country, the members of the Committee on Peace Problems are: Honorary chairman, Abram I. Elkus and Judge Irving Lehman, New York; Chairman, Joseph M. Proskauer, N.Y.; Associate chairman, Jacob Blaustein, Baltimore, and George Z. Medalie, N. Y.; Secretary, Morris D. Waldman, N. Y.; Carl J. Austrian, N. Y.; James H. Becker, Chicago; Dr. Monroe Doutach, Berkeley; Judge Phillip Forman, Trenton; Judge Eli Frank, Baltimore; Waldo Frank, N. Y.; Judge Jacob J. Kaplan, Boston; Dr. Hans Kohn, Northampton, Mass.; Arthur K. Kuhn, N. Y.; Fred Lazarus, Jr., Columbus, Ohio; Monte M. Lemann, New Orleans; Samuel D. Leidesdorf, N. Y.; James Marshall, N. Y.; Harris Perlstein, Chicago; Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, Chapel Hill, N. C.; Dr. Alexander N. Sack, N. Y.; Dr. I. L. Sharfman, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Hon. Murray Soasongood, Cincinnati; Hon. M. C. Sloss, San Francisco; Jesse H. Steinhart, San Francisco; Judge Horace Stern, Philadelphia; Dr. Frank Tannenbaum, N. Y.; Sidney J. Weinberg, N. Y.; Maurice Wertheim, N. Y.; Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, N. Y.