The charge that the World Jewish Conference constituted a super-government was “a stupid machination of the Berlin Nazi propaganda office,” Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, member of the American delegation to the conference declared in an informal report submitted to the administrative committee of the American Jewish Congress last night at the Hotel Commodore.
The conference, he declared in his report, was “dismayed when we learned that some American Jews had dealt with it seriously in order to injure the work of the conference.
A full report of the world conference will be submitted to the congress upon the return of Dr. Samuel Margoshes, Dr. Horace M. Kallen, Rabbi Wolf Gold, Mrs. Augusta Holzman, Mrs. Archibald Silverman, Rabbi Joshoua Goldberg, and David Wertheim, American delegates still in Europe, it was stated at the meeting.
ONLY 40 DELEGATES EXPECTED
“The conference, which was really a joint session of the executive committee of the World Jewish Conference and the Committee of Jewish Delegations, which were merged at the conference, was expected not to exceed forty or fifty in number,” Dr. Wise said. Instead of that, one hundred and more delegates gathered, coming from twenty and more lands, to participate in the conference.
“If I were asked to name the highlights of the conference, I would make mention first of the address of Dr. Nahum Goldmann, which approached the Nordau addresses of the earlier Zionist congresses in breadth and power and vision. I would also name a thrilling appeal to the Jewish people to unite, made by Sholom Asch, author of “Three Cities,” and the report on the economic status of the Jews in Europe by Dr. Jacob Lestchinsky.
“My associates of the American Jewish Congress had a significant and effective part in the conference throughout its deliberations. The conference itself up to the last day had heard nothing of the hoax about “super-government” perpetrated through the machinations of the Berlin Nazi propaganda office. After this “deliberate blunder” had been made, we learned to our dismay that some American Jews, instead of understanding the mendacious origin and deriding the stupidity of the hoax, dealt with it seriously in order to injure the work of the conference and of the American Jewish Congress. This action was, to use a favorite German term, a stab in the back of the Jewish people, equalled only by the shame of the Naumann denunciation of the conference as “made up of homeless and blackmailing Jews.”
ANSWER TO LIBEL
“The only answer to this libel about super-government was made by the conference when we declared that no sane Jews aims at world super-government but that every decent and self-respecting Jew was resolved that Jews everywhere should cease to be inframen.
“Two decisions of the Conference were inevitable: (1) The continuance and intensification of the world boycott against Nazi Germany, which boycott in substance is led by the American Federation of Labor and the English Congress of Trades Unions. The conference in response to Mr. Untermyer joined with him in making clear that Jews could be nothing more than sharers in a world boycott by the forces of civilization against the barbarous and brutal Nazi regime. It may be that we shall have something interesting to report in the near future about the continuance and extension of the boycott. (2) The second decision of the conference was to convene the World Jewish Congress, such Congress to be predicated upon and conditioned by democratic elections wherever these are legally permissable. The Chief Rabbi of Italy, Dr. Sacerdoti, made clear in his striking utterance that the Italian Jewish community is so organized that it will require no special election, such as must and will be held in America Poland, and other great Jewries. Nothing was more impressive at the conference than the unity of Jewish consciousness revealed by honored representatives of many Jewries.
“The American Jewish Congress proceeds to an election to be held April 28, 1935, preliminary to the World Jewish Congress. In that election all American Jews will be invited to have part. The Congress is not troubled about vociferous vulgarians posing as Jewish editors. As for responsible leaders and workers in American Jewry, they will have part in the Congress elections, because they are loyal Jews,” Dr. Wise said in conclusion.
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