American Jewish Conference Meets in Cleveland Today; Will Decide on Its Status

The question whether the American Jewish Conference should continue functioning as a temporary emergency body or become a permanent organization will be one of the major issues at the Third Session of the Conference, which opens here on Sunday. The convention will be attended by more than 500 delegates representing major Jewish groups and communities throughout the country.

Six plenary meetings, which are scheduled to be held during the three-day session, will take up various problems concerning the Jews in Europe and in Palestine. One of the sessions will be addressed by Dr. Zalman Grinberg, president of the Central Committee for Liberated Jews in Bavaria, who is due to arrive in this country today by plane from Germany.

A statement issued today by the Interim Committee of the American Jewish Conference emphasizes that “the future course and character of the Conference will be the question uppermost in the minds of the delegates.” It points out that the “ad hoc” character of the Conference, organized for the period of the war emergency, “has placed limitations on its structure, scope and tenure.”

“The war emergency,” the statement says, “is nearly over and many now believe that the Conference, as it is constituted at present has, to a great measure, fulfilled its task, and that it should carry on for the purpose of concluding unfinished business. However, there is not a single group within the American Jewish Conference which desires to end the life of the Conference abruptly or prematurely. There is unanimity on the need for an orderly conclusion of the emergency phase of the Conference work.

“In the light of past experience, and the Jewish situation the world over, particularly in Europe and in Palestine, there is a growing awareness of the imperative need for the establishment of an over-all American Jewish representative body to deal with overseas Jewish problems as they arise. This is no longer an emergency task requiring an ad hoc organization. It requires a body designed to carry out a long-range program. Many are therefore of the belief that the American Jewish Conference, representing as it does, the overwhelming majority of the national membership Jewish organizations and organized communities throughout the country, should take upon itself the task of initiating the formation of such a body to succeed the Conference, when it concludes its business and retires from the Jewish scene,” the statement concludes.