A Supreme Court Justice here has ruled valid the will of a bachelor who left most of his $350, 000 estate to the Jewish National Fund to be used to buy land in Israel for establishment of a Jewish colony. The ruling was made by Justice R.A. Wooton in rejecting challenges to the will of relatives of Frank Schechter, a bachelor, who died May 2, 1961 aged 74, The relatives all live in the United States.
Schechter made some specific bequests to charities and to sisters, a brother, a nephew and two nieces, with the bulk of his estate deeded to the Jewish National Fund with instructions to buy “the best lands available, in Palestine, the United States, or any British Dominion, and establish a Jewish colony or colonies, to be known as the Frank Schechter Colony.”
The jurist, in issuing his ruling, wrote that he had examined more than 50 cases for precedents and that “contemporaneous history shows us that there was persecution of the Jews within Europe at the time when the testator made his will in the year 1932 and the results of the persecution of the Jews under the Hitler regime will remain for many years” after the donor’s death.
He added that in applying the residual clause in the will, which left the money to the JNF, “we find a condition existing in the world where it is indeed a charity and a worthy one that there should be a relief for the Jew who has suffered the destruction of his relatives, his fortune and his home.”
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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.
