Daily Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does indicate approval –Editor.]

The opinion that the Zionist-J. D. C. controversy will affect the Jewish Agency plan and the demand that the facts in the case be made known by both parties were voiced by Dr. Isaac Landman in the “American Hebrew,” a non-Zionist publication.

“We have been following the controversy between the Joint Distribution Committee and the Zionist Organization of America as one observes a tug-of-war,” the paper states. “There is interest in the spectacle; perhaps a thrill; but it leads nowhere, and is likely to have no constructive outcome for the Jews of America along its present lines. American Jews who are interested in the economic and cultural salvaging of East-European Jewish Communities and in the rehabilitation of Palestine desire an end to accusation, recrimination and vituperation; seek a constructive result from the controversy that will lead both causes forward. This can be achieved, immediately. Both Br. Brown and Mr. Neumann, in their latest exchange of complimentary epistles, offer the suggestion.

“Mr. Neumann, discussing the conversations between the Joint Distribution Committee and the Zionist Organization, writes: ‘Since these conversations necessarily bore a confidential character and involved other J. D. C. leaders aside from Mr. Brown, we prefer not to enter into further details unless it becomes necessary to do so.’ And Mr. Brown wires: ‘If it ever becomes necessary to lay before the Jews of America the story of intrigue and cheap politics of that group who live on Zionism instead of for Zionism in connection with their series of attacks upon the United Jewish Campaign and those responsible for its conduct, let me make clear that I have this story in its chronological order; and if ever presented to the Jews of this country would result in throwing into the discard many of the so-called leaders of American Zionism.’

“Why the threats, veiled and open? Why not the facts, the truth? No one concerned in the work of the United Jewish Campaign desires to hide anything or to spare anyone. Let Mr. Neumann make his veiled threat good. Nor will the Zionists, those who love Jews and Palestine above their ism, we presume, object to revelation of the truth concerning those who ‘live on Zionism and not for Zionism,’ and their ousting, if need be, for the sake of the future of the Holy Land. If ever the truth–plain, unvarnished, painful–was necessary, it is now. Nothing in recent years has been more necessary. If we do not get it, the collections for the United Jewish Campaign will suffer and the Palestine appeals will in the future fall on suspecting ears.

“Moreover, until the situation is cleared up, the establishment of The Jewish Agency for Palestine is out of the question: American non-Zionist leaders, who are identified with the United Jewish Campaign, cannot, in self-respect, deal with the Zionist Organization under its present leadership. Come, gentlemen, let us have the whole truth,” the paper concludes.

ARAB PRESS ON RUMORED INCLUSION OF SYRIAN TERRITORY INTO PALESTINE

The Near East correspondent of “Al Mokattam,” Egyptian Arab newspaper, surveying the development of relations between the Palestine and Syrian Governments, and between the latter and the Zionists, stresses the point that a rumor has gained ground to the fact that while M. de Jouvenel was in Jerusalem he urged the Zionists to undertake colonization work in the Hauran.

In Paris M. de Jouvenel met Zionist leaders from London “to negotiate with them in this matter,” the paper states. “The French are desirous of securing Jewish support in the present financial crisis in France, and are offering the Hauran as bait. If England sacrificed Palestine for the help it received from the Jews during the war, why not France?” the paper asks. It writes further that the annexation of the Hauran to Transjordania, and thus to Palestine, has been discussed upon more than one occasion and that the Sykes-Picot line allows for a part of the Hauran to be ceded to Palestine. The northern boundary should have been fixed at the Kiswe station, fifteen miles south of Damascus. But the British waived the further territory in favor of the Arab national government then at Damascus during Faisal’s regime.

“It is rumored,” the paper declares, “that when General Weygand was in Jerusalem in 1924, the British authorities demanded this territory as reward for their assent to the Beirut-Haifa railway. It is not at all surprising that the matter has been revived or that the Hauran will be ultimately ceded to Palestine. The topic was under discussion between General Gamelin and Lord Plumer at Jerusalem recently.”

CRITICIZES CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL JEWS

A critical view of the recent International Conference of Liberal Jews is taken by the London “Jewish Chronicle” The paper wrotes:

“The Conference presented a whole gamut of thoughts and ideas utterly inconsistent, and totally incompatible. Precisely, indeed, what was to be expected from those who accept no religious authority, who are without any leadership, and who, so far as Judaism and all that concerns it goes, are in the most hopeless state of inchoate instability. More than one delegate either with blind fatuousness or in sheer perversity thought this a gratifying feature of the movement. It is to be hoped, however, for the sake of Judaism at large, that the new International organization will to some extent remedy this, and that there will emerge a ‘Liberal’ Judaism at least definite and well determined.

“Nothing can be more damaging than the present state of affairs, or anything more calculated to damage the Jewish faith than lack of knowledge–understanding of the soul as well as learning of the mind. And beneath the thin veneer of culture and superiority displayed at the Conference there were dense ignorance of so much that is Jewish and a self-satisfaction that well matched the picture.

“What could prove this better, pray, than Mr. Montefiore’s observation that the criticism that had been leveled against ‘Liberal’ Judaism–and he alluded, of course, to the recent attacks upon it by the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire–was of no account and need not be considered? If Mr. Montefiore believed that, then his observation was merely silly. He did not believe anything of the kind. He is not likely to nourish any idea so absurd as that the words of a man in the position and of the undoubted powers of Dr. Hertz could be with any show of reason thus lightly tossed aside.

“Despite all the fine words–and fine words butter no parsnips–anyone reading with an open mind the proceedings of the ‘Liberal’ Jewish Conference, must see how very estranged from the Jewish spirit these ‘Liberal’ Jews are, and the extent to which they have chosen to separate themselves from the congregation of their fellow-Jews,” the paper concludes.