Canada’s experience with its Jewish citizens has given the government confidence in the Jewish people as a whole, Canadian Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent said here, addressing the 11th national convention of the Canadian Jewish Congress. He lauded Canadian Jewry for its vigilance which he called a major stimulation to Canadian democracy and for its contributions to the social morality of the nation.
Mr. St. Laurent told the meeting that he had received a communication from Israel Premier David Ben Gurion renewing assurances that the jet planes sold by Canada to Israel would be used only for defensive purposes. He lauded Mr. Ben Gurion’s statement that Israel was fully prepared to negotiate with the Arab states for a peace settlement.
The Prime Minister recalled Canadian assistance to the establishment of the State of Israel and to its further development and said that the aid had been given “gladly.”
Samiel Bronfman, re-elected president of the CJC for the 20th year, held out the example of Canadian Jewry to other communities, including those of the United States. The Canadian community, he said, was united and effective. “We have no anti-Zionist, non-Zionist or Zionist. All are united in the interests of our people in Canada, in Israel and throughout the world,” Mr. Bronfman said.
The reason for this unity and effectiveness, the CJC president said, was that “we have never taken a vote or adopted a majority decision over the minority. We always found a way to unanimity on every issue.”
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the Jewish Agency, told the Congress at its closing dinner last night that Israel’s security was still uncertain. The Jews of the West, he stressed, have to work for Israel’s secure future and for the “survival of Jews in the community of Eastern Europe.”
Dr. Goldmann attributed the Middle Eastern crisis to the fact that the West had placed the Middle East’s problems “in the refrigerator” pending the solution of problem sin other troubled areas. He said he did not expect war between Arabs and Israel, and on this he gave credit to nations–including Canada, which recently announced that permission had been granted for the shipment of twenty-four Sabre jet planes–that had assisted Israel with arms.
The convention heard a report that 60 percent of the Jewish children of Montreal receive a Jewish education, most of them in all-day schools. A report by the CJC public relations committee criticized Premier Maurice Duplessis of Quebec Province and his Union Nationale party for using in the election campaign a publication of Adrien Arcand, notorious anti-Semite.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
