The danger of Christian missionary activity in Palestine is pointed out in a report of the Palestine committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The report, based on an investigation made by the well-known American Hadassah leader, Henrietta Szold, on behalf of the Palestine Vaad Leumi, the Jewish National Council, will be submitted this Sunday to a meeting of the Board of Deputies.
The report “reveals a situation calling for immediate action, if the future of Jewish education in Palestine is to be saved,” the Palestine committee stated.
According to the report submitted by Miss Szold, 800 Jewish children are attending Christian schools, which are almost all conducted by missionaries, where various methods are adopted to attract Jewish children, including free tuition, clothing and even gifts. On the other hand, the Jewish schools, with twenty-five thousand pupils, are not only unable to offer attractions, but do not have even suitable school premises or recreation grounds.
The number of Jewish girls who attend the Christian schools is far larger than that of Jewish boys, Miss Szold said. Paradoxically enough, many religious Jews are willing to send their daughters to girls’ schools conducted by missionraies, rather than to the co-educational Jewish schools. In her report, Miss Szold recommended that sooner than fight the missionaries, the Jews must strengthen their own schools, thus paralyzing the missionary influence in Palestine.
The Palestine committee proposes the convening of an Anglo-Jewish conference to deal with this matter.
The Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association reported that it was satisfied with the recent London conference for the relief of German Jews, which, the committee declares, amply justified itself.
The committee revealed that Norman Bentwich, former attorney-general of Palestine, who is now in Geneva, where with Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Dr. Nahum Goldman, he represents the London conference, submitted to the secretariat of the League of Nations, the resolutions and recommendations of the London conference.
He also submitted a request to the British Foreign Office that Lord Robert Cecil, distinguished British statesman, be appointed to the League’s autonomous governing body for German refugees.
Other steps will be taken to implement the decisions of the London conference, the report of the Joint Foreign Committee stated.
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