The Council of the Anglo-Jewish Association at a meeting here went on record as opposed to the establishment of a permanent organization competent to speak for world Jewry. The Council called such an action a “retrograde step.”
The action followed a discussion in which R. H. Landman. Chairman of the AJA foreign affairs committee, expressed the hope that the Board of Deputies and other British Jewish bodies would also oppose such a proposal by the World Jewish Congress. “We have the experience gained from the Claims Conference, the Zurich Conference and the Austrian Claims Conference that British Jewry would have little in fact to say and would be saddled with responsibility for policies over which it would have no control,” Mr. Landman argued.
Members of the AJA Council also criticized the choice of a forest in Israel as British Jewry’s coronation gift to Queen Elizabeth. However, AJA president Ewen S. Montagu declared that since the Queen had accepted the gift it was now up to the whole community to support the project.
A. L. Easterman, political director of the World Jewish Congress, took issue with the AJA statement which he termed “reckless” and “unfounded.” He objected to the AJA’s “unfortunate” attack on the World Jewish Congress for its role in pressing for a world body.
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