Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress, returning on the Ile de France from the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, expressed the opinion today that disorders in Palestine had strengthened the Jewish community.
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he declared that while immigration to Palestine might be suspended for a time, “it is incredible to believe that Britain should commit the blunder of postponing immigration.”
Such an act, he said, would be “a reward to the Arabs for lawlessness and a penalty to the Jews for loyalty and self-restraint. Such a blow to the hopes of the Jewish people would be supremely unjust, coming at a time when the need of persecuted Jews for a home of freedom and security was never more urgent.”
Reuben Salzman and William Weiner, two of the five radical Jewish delegates who were barred from the Congress, also returned on the Ile de France. They minimized the congress’s results and said a fight must be pressed for a “united” and “democratic” congress. They will report to a mass meeting at the Manhattan Opera House Sept. 3.
The main task facing the Zionist movement in America and all Jews concerned with the rebuilding of the Jewish National Home in Palestine is the mobilization of all forces to resist the imminent danger of the suspension of Jewish immigration into Palestine, said Dr. Wise.
Discussing the World Congress, Dr. Wise declared that it had two important accomplishments to its credit; first, that it laid the foundations for a permanent body which, in time to come, would win the adherence of all Jews so that the problems affecting the Jewish people in various parts of the world might be dealt with systematically; secondly, that it centered attention on the paramount need of opening the doors of Palestine to an even greater Jewish immigration instead of permitting any restrictions on the progress thus far attained.
He said the Congress had served a valuable purpose in giving to the delegation from Poland an opportunity to recount the plight of 3,500,000 Jews threatened by unprecedented economic and political persecution. “Every one of the 61 delegates attending the Congress from Poland,” Dr. Wise stated, “signed his name to the most courageous document describing the plight of Jews that has ever come out of Poland.”
Commenting on his conferences in London , where he had been summoned to discuss the Palestine situation by Dr. Martin Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, Dr. Wise said:
“We are now faced with the supreme task of averting the peril of a suspension of Jewish immigration. It is true that we found a sympathetic hearing among officers of the British Government for the case of the Jewish people in Palestine, but there is a danger that considerations that have no relation to the Balfour Declaration and the League Mandate are playing a vital part in the decisions that may be made by the British Government with respect to Palestine.”
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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.
