Anglo-jewry’s Position on Government Interpretation of Palestine White Paper: No Resolution or Other

The recommendation of the Palestine Committee of the Jewish Board of Deputies “that no resolution or other action by the Board is called for at the present time” on the subject of the Prime Minister’s letter to Dr. Weizmann, containing the Government’s authoritative interpretation of the White Paper on Palestine, was agreed to by the Board without a division or a show of hands at its meeting held here this morning under the chairmanship of the President, Mr. O. E. d’Avigdor Goldsmid.

In the course of the discussion Mr. J. Bollotton said that personally he could not see any particular reason for satisfaction. He thought that there really was no difference between the White Paper of 1930 and the so-called suthoritative letter of interpretation. He was of the opinion that the Board was entitled to have some definite expression of opinion on this important matter.

Mr. C. Q. Henriques, who was one of the experts of the Joint Palestine Survey Commission, spoke of the “gross insult offered to British Jewry” in the 1929 disturbances, when British Jews, many of whom had served in the army, were publicly disarmed in Palestine.

Mr. d’Avigdor Goldsmid pointed out that there was no reference to that matter in the Prime Minister’s letter, whereupon Mr. Henriques said that he was raising the matter to ask the President to see that some explanation should be offered by the Government to British Jewry in regard to this matter.

Rabbi Dr. Daiches said that the White Paper was an insulting document – a malicious document, and the Prime Minister had taken away the insulting part, the malicious part and had re-established the position as it was almost before the White Paper. Although the letter is not entirely satisfactory, he went on, I think that the letter has wiped out to a great extent the blot of the White Paper, and I hope that the Government will implement the Mandate as we understand it.

Every impartial person reading the letter from the Prime Minister, which I repeat is not 100 per cent. satisfactory, must say that it has re-established a basis for co-operation. I subscribe entirely, he concluded, to the recommendation of the Palestine Committee. We must watch events and see how the words in the letter are being translated into action, but for the present it would be most unwise, impolitic and perhaps mischievous, if this Board expressed an opinion against the Prime Minister’s letter and Dr. Weizmann’s reply.

Mr. D. Weizmann said that he was astounded at the speech by Dr. Daiches, whose speech at the time of the issue of the White Paper they would remember. There had been no definite declaration by the Prime Minister that the White Paper had been withdrawn. I hope it will not for one minute go forward from this Board, he concluded, that any one of us is satisfied with the Prime Minister’s letter. We are disgusted with the treatment meted out to us.

WE WERE NOT AIMING AT NEW BALFOUR DECLARATION AND NO ONE SUGGESTED PRIME MINISTER’S LETTER WAS TO BE WELCOMED AS NEW BALFOUR DECLARATION: NOR WERE WE AS INJURED PARTY MANOEUVRING FOR ADVANTAGE AT EXPENSE OF ARAB POPULATION WITH WHOM WE HAVE TO CO-OPERATE IN FUTURE: WE HAD TO CLEAR AWAY UNJUST ALLEGATIONS AGAINST JEWISH PEOPLE IN REGARD TO THEIR WORK IN PALESTINE.

Mr. Leonard Stein, the Honorary Counsel to the Jewish Agency, began by saying that there was no need to import passion into the discussion, and went on to analyse the Prime Minister’s letter in comparison with the White Paper. His case, he said, was that the letter represented a noteworthy advance.

What was it they were actuated by when they entered into negotiation with the Government in October last, Mr. Stein asked. They were not aiming at a new Balfour Declaration, and no one had ever suggested that the Prime Minister’s letter was to be welcomed as a new Balfour Declaration. Nor were we, he said, as the injured party, manoeuvring for advantage at the expense of the Arab population, whom, we realise, whatever the Prime Minister’s letter or the White Paper may say, we have to co-operate with in the future. We had to clear away the unjust allegations against the Jewish people in regard to their work in Palestine. I think that a good test whether the Prime Minister’s letter has any merit or virtue is to compare what he says with the memorandum which the Jewish Agency submitted. A commonsense test is how have the points raised by the Jewish Agency been met by the Prime Minister. If you will apply that test, he continued, you will find that the results from the Jewish point of view are by no means unsatisfactory. I am putting it at its lowest. What we protested against was a misinterpretation of the Mandate, and what we asked and expected and received is that we are back again at a true interpretation of the Mandate.

On the point of land purchase, Mr. Stein said that the Prime Minister’s letter made it abundantly clear that there was to be no embargo on land purchase, but adding that while the development scheme was being carried out there would be some measure of control, but that it would be exercised in such a way that there would be no obstacle in the way of Jewish acquisition of land. That, from the practical point of view, he said, is, I consider, very important.

Then, for the first time, he proceeded, we have it stated in the Prime Minister’s letter that a systematic and comprehensive attempt will be made in regard to “the whole land resources in Palestine in “regard to what State and other lands are, or properly can be made, available for close settlement of Jews …” We have now the very important assurance that steps will probably be taken, and I am sure they will be taken, to survey the whole resources of the land of the country to find out how they can be made available for Jewish colonisation without injustice to others of the population. That, I think, is of the greatest importance.

In regard to immigration, Mr. Stein said, we asked that we should not be in a worse position than under the 1922 White Paper. The Prime Minister gave us what we asked for. It is not that the Jewish Agency were coming forward and asking people to cheer loudly. What we do say is that a very grave injustice was done the Jewish people by the White Paper. The Government have recognised that, and have taken a very unusual step in climbing down as they have done, and it would be wrong not to recognise that the Government has treated us with great goodwill. But no reasonable person could expect that the Government could tear up the White Paper.

Mr. Stein concluded his speech by emphasising the binding character of the Prime Minister’s letter as an official document.

ANGLO-JEWRY’S PROTEST AGAINST CALENDAR REFORM SCHEME INVOLVING MOVABLE SABBATH: ALL JEWISH CONGREGATIONS IN BRITISH ISLES TO BE ASKED TO ADOPT PROTEST RESOLUTIONS WHICH JOINT FOREIGN COMMITTEE WILL TRANSMIT TO LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND BRITISH GOVERNMENT: JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY ASSURANCE ON EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS OF STAATENLOSE IN LITHUANIA QUOTED IN JOINT FOREIGN COMMITTEE’S REPORT: THE REMOVAL OF CZARIST RESTRICTIONS AGAINST JEWS IN POLAND.

The Joint Foreign Committee states in its report presented to the meeting that it has now decided to submit the following resolution for adoption by all Jewish Congregations in the British Isles:

That this meeting desires to record an emphatic protest against any reform of the calendar by the introduction of a blank day or days, thereby making the Sabbath a movable day, involving confusion for Jewish religious life, and entailing grave social and economic disabilities for the overwhelming majority of Jews throughout the world.

The resolutions will all be transmitted by the Joint Foreign Committee to the League of Nations and the British Government.

The assurance given by the Lithuanian Minister of the Interior to Mr. Jacob Landau, the Managing Director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and Mr. B. Smolar, the J.T.A. Special Representative, that the projected restriction of employment in Lithuania will be enforced only against such aliens who entered the country after July 1929, is quoted in the Joint Foreign Committee’s report.

In July last, the report says, the Lithuanian Government promulgated a law on the employment of foreigners, which enacted that foreigners might only engage in an occupation if they were furnished with a special permit from the local Administrative Authority. No exception was made in the case of the large number of foreigners (estimated to be some 18,000) who have lived in Lithuania for seven or eight years. Among these foreigners there are about 8,000 Jews. In December last the Ministry of the Interior announced that as from January 1st., 1932, all employers would be required to dismiss their alien employees and engage Lithuanian citizens in their stead. This manifest injustice aroused a storm of protests, not only in Lithuania, but in other countries. The Joint Foreign Committee communicated to the Lithuanian Legation in London its apprehension at the effects of such legislation. It has now been reported that the Minister of the Interior has informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the employment restrictions will be enforced only against such aliens who entered Lithuania after July 1929.

The Joint Foreign Committee report also deals with the action of the Polish Senate in passing the Government Bill for the abolition of the Czarist restrictions which have remained on the Statute Book in Congress Poland since the War, although they have not been enforced. The Bill has already been passed by the Lower House, the report proceeds, but as the assent of the letter is required for some slight amendments made in the text, it will still be some little while before the Law comes into force. Among the measures which will be repealed by the Law are (1) Decree of the Administrative Council of the Kingdom of Poland, 1841, imposing double tariffs on Jews in public hospitals; (2) Article of the Polish Civil Code, forbidding non-Christians to exercise any public function or employment involving authority over Christians; (3) Article of the Penal Code forbidding Jews to change their surnames or first names; (4) Article of the Mining Law, forbidding Jews to take part in the Mining Industry; (5) Article of the Customs Law, in virtue of which Jews suspected of contravening Customs regulations might be removed to a distance of 100 kilometres from a frontier; (6) Imperial Ukrase of 1913, forbidding Jews to lease trust-properties.

The provisional Russian Government, after the Revolution of 1917, it is explained in the report, formally abolished by special decree all these measures, and they accordingly ceased to be enforced in Esthonia and Latvia, but as Poland was then in the occupation of the Central Powers, the decree could not apply to that country. The Polish Republic did not put any of this exceptional legislation into force, but the Jews of Poland considered it a question of honour that they should not remain on the Statute Book.