Demands that a share of the millions left by the late Baron de Hirsch to the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) be allotted for Zionist work were voiced today at the all-German Zionist conference.
Meanwhile, it became known that the ICA is ready to invest $2,000,000 in the 40,000-acre Huleh plain in the northern section of Palestine acquired by the Jewish Agency in December, 1934.
Bitter criticism of the ICA was voiced by Dr. Georg Landauer of the Jewish Agency, addressing the delegates. His stand was supported by Dr. Siegfried Moses and Dr. Kurt Blumenfeld, president and ex-president respectively of the German Zionist Federation, both of whom declared that the ICA does not spend its funds for the right purposes.
Dr. Blumenfeld offered a resolution demanding that the ICA invest capital in Palestine.
Replying to the criticism, Dr. Alfred Klee, a member of the ICA’s board of directors, disclosed that it had participated in the preparations for sending the British delegation headed by Sir Herbert Samuel to the United States to obtain support for German emigration.
Dr. Klee declared that the Association finances central German Jewish institutions and helps to settle German Jews in South America.
Earlier in the day, the delegates of the Mizrachi, orthodox Zionist organization, who had bolted the conference, resumed their seats after announcing that they had settled their dispute with the praesidium.
The orthodox delegates walked out yesterday when the praesidium ruled out of order one of their leaders who was criticizing Dr. Blumenfeld on a religious question.
Agents of the Gestapo, secret State police, continued to take stenographic notes of all speeches. The conference, which is the twenty-fifth in the history of German Zionism, is the first national Zionist parley to be held since Reichsfuehrer Hitler’s accession to power.
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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.
