Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, who resigned last week from leadership of the American Zionist Emergency Council, today took issue with a statement issued by Dr. Stephen S. Wise, last Tuesday, in which it was charged that Dr. Silver “had deliberately and persistently contravened the decisions of the Council in a matter of supreme importance to the lasting hurt of our sacred cause.”
Dr. Silver’s statement reads:
“The statement or Dr. Stephen S. Wise, which appeared in the JTA Bulletin of Wednesday, December 27, explaining his so-called resignation amused me greatly. No officer of the American Zionist Emergency Council has so frequently and so flagrantly contravened its decisions as Dr. Wise. The minutes of the Council will show that Dr. Wise was time and again criticized for his unauthorized conduct and undisciplined actions. The worst and most recent instance was the fatal telegram which he dispatched without my knowledge to the Secretary of State on the very eve when Senator Wagner and I were scheduled to see him in order to persuade the State Department and the President to withdraw their objections to passage of the Palestine Resolution.
“In this telegram, which Dr. Wise sent on his own without consulting the Council, he stated that while he would be happy if approval were given to the Resolution, he and many of his associates do not wish to have action taken contrary to the recommendation of the State Department and the President. This, of course, completely nullified the whole purpose of our visit and more than any other factor was responsible for the shelving of the Palestine Resolution.
“All too often Dr. Wise treated the Zionist movement of the United States as a piece of personal property and has bitterly resented any new leadership which threatened his monopoly. His ‘shtadlanuth’ in Washington has been an egregious failure for many years, and not only as far as Zionism is concerned. This weak-knee ‘shadlanuth’ policy has accomplished next to nothing for our people during these tragic years of slaughter and annihilation.”
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