Because of a strange oversight, a German audience in the Lower Rhine district was allowed to hear a non-Jewish lecturer on Palestine pay a warm tribute to the Jewish achievements in Palestine. “The astounding development in Palestine in the last ten years has been not only the work of England, but must be credited to the cultural productivity of the Jews,” the lecturer declared.
He further went on to say that “the ‘Arab gentlemen’, whose national pride, freedom and honor mean more to him than material profit, should first accept the high cultural level of the Jews before they discuss this matter.” He added that “the most dangerous idea which came from Europe to the Arabs and is the cause of strife is nationalism.” “Splendid efforts of western civilization,” was the way the speaker described the buildings in Tel Aviv (the world’s only all-Jewish city).
Commenting on the loose censorship which permitted such statements to be made, the Essener National-Zeitung, the organ of Field Marshal Hermann Goering, states with regret that the audience neither hissed nor heckled the speaker — whose name is not given — or ordered him to go to the Palestine which he apparently admired so much. Furthermore, the paper points out, the speech was printed and sent to people in the district who could not attend the lecture.
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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.
