Ickes Lauds Jewish Achievements

sion, Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, declared that “the effort to rebuild the Jewish Homeland not only holds our sympathetic interest, it appeals mightily to our imagination.”

He saw in the courageous attempt to overcome seemingly insuperable difficulties in the upbuilding of Palestine a true picture of the outstanding quality of Jews “which has distinguished them among all peoples of the world.”

“Truly it may be said that the spirit of the great Jewish prophets has possessed and inspired these indomitable people throughout all the centuries of their wanderings,” he said. “The position of the Jew in the world today, especially as symbolized by the peaceful reconquest of Palestine, is incontrovertible proof that man has ever been great and unconquerable in the degree in which he has possessed spiritual qualities of a high order.”

U. S. ALWAYS SYMPATHETIC

Secretary Ickes pointed out that the United States always has been friendly to the Jewish cause in Palestine. He reviewed the sympathy shown the project by the late President Woodrow Wilson, by the United States Congress in 1922 and by his own Department of the Interior, which sent Dr. Elwood Mead, its reclamation expert, to the Holy Land to give scientific advice.

“While from time to time there may have been discreditable attempts on the part of small scattered and isolated groups in America to raise a barrier of prejudice against the Jew,” he declared, “I think it will be conceded that, generally speaking, the Jew has had in this land opportunities equal to all others.

UNFORGETTABLE OBLIGATION

“We have welcomed him and we are glad to have him. On more than one occasion he has been called upon to serve America in high political office. He has contributed in large measure to our economic advance; under the flag he has fought shoulder to shoulder with sons descended from different racial stocks; he has put us under an unforgettable obligation for the warmth of his nature and for the vision and the idealism that he has generously shared with us.”

The Secretary of the Interior gave especial praise to Jewry for the peaceable manner in which it has conducted its struggle for a Homeland.

“Heretofore,” he said, “other peoples, when they have wanted to possess a land for themselves, have gone forth with spear and sword to accomplish that purpose. They have conquered the coveted land by the might of their arms.

COMPARES PIONEER SPIRIT

“The Jew is repossessing Palestine by an intelligent use of the arts of peace . . . What the Jew has already achieved in Palestine and what he will still do would of itself entitle him to a glowing page in history even if he had not already emblazened his high accomplishments there.”

Ickes compared the pioneering spirit which is fostering a new Palestine to the struggle now going on in this country to improve conditions here. He took occasion at this point to insert an encomium of the New Deal, which he saw as a victory for planning. He attributed Palestine’s freedom from the world depression to similar intelligent foresight.

“America has nothing but good will for the reborn Jewish nationalism,” he said. “We are glad to celebrate with you this first observance of Palestine Day . . . But America will always continue to cherish its own citizens of Jewish descent. It will never forget Justice Brandeis, a Lincolnesque figure too near our own day for us to realize his noble greatness.”

The Jews are an integral part of the national structure, Secetary Ickes declared.

“What the Jews have helped America and other nations to achieve they can do even more thoroughly and satisfactorily for themselves. Palestine cannot fail because it is being upbuilded by a people whose character is woven of purpose and will and faith,” he concluded.

ADLER RECALLS NEGOTIATIONS

Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the American Jewish Committee, spoke reminiscently of the part he played in 1891, when “the second great trek of Jews from Russia and Rumania was begun.”

“It seemed to me most natural,” he said, “that instead of making the long voyage across the Atlantic, they should come down from Odessa and settle in the Holy Land. Without any authority and without any committee, I presented these views to the then Grand Vizier of Turkey, Kiamal Pasha.

“He told me that the Turkish government would be prepared to receive the settlement of Jews in Palestine at the rate of about 5,000 a year, which he thought, to use the modern phrase, was the ‘economic capacity of the country.’ . . .

TURKISH EMPIRE AND JEWS

“I think with the development of the Zionis. Organization and especially during the War period, there has been shown a disposition to be unfair to the Turks as far as the Jews were concerned. Whatever may be thought of the old Turkish Empire, the position of the Jews under it was excellent. After Islam, Judaism was the preferred religion and the Hakam Bashi, the Chief Rabbi of Turkey, had real authority and what amounted to extra territorial rights.”

Dr. Adler recalled that in the same year he talked with the late Baron de Rothschild and with M. M. Ussishkin regarding a Home Land in Palestine.

“I am sure,” he continued, “that in all our efforts we wish to bear in mind that Palestine is the country sacred to three faiths. With these faiths we wish to live at peace in Palestine, and we wish to live at peace with people of all faiths the world over.”

Alfred M. Cohen, president of B’nai B’rith, spoke in deprecatory terms of the accomplishments of the High Commission for Refugees, created fifteen months ago by the League of Nations, and stressed the imperative nature of developing Palestine as a haven from which “there seems to be no alternative.”

“What has happened since the creation of the Commission,” he asked, “despite the competency of the thoroughly sympathetic High Commissioner? Not a dollar has been contributed by any of the countries involved and scarcely any of them has relaxed to the slightest degree the rigor of its immigration regulations . . .

“The fact is that world-wide unemployment and economic stress have been so severe that even countries which were kindly hospitable even before the High Commission was formed have since issued orders barring refugees from employment so long as natives are unsupplied with places.”

TREATS ON CAUSES

In this emergency, Cohen said, “little Palestine, hardly larger than Connecticut in area, has shown great absorptive capacity.”

“In view of what Palestine has accomplished for the Jews of Europe during the last two years,” he declared, “the skepticism of the man of affairs must halt.”

The B’nai B’rith president discussed the motivations behind the influx of Jews into Palestine, touching on the religious, social and economic aspects of the movement. After classifying the groups who have felt the need for a Jewish Homeland, he said:

“And lastly there were ourselves, who did not feel so intensely any of these yearnings, who did not find ourselves out of joint with our surroundings and whose chief unhappiness was the unhappiness of our coreligionists whose lot was cast under darker skies, and we had sufficient interest in and sympathy for them and their strivings to render a moderate amount of moral and material support.

A CHANGED SITUATION

“That was the case of Palestine up to a recent date, but obviously the situation has radically changed during the last few years . . . There is the German catastrophe and the threat of similar catastrophies in Austria and maybe in other countries, and there is a persistent menace to the lives of millions of our people in Poland, sometimes almost overlooked because it has continued so long that it has lost the dramatic effect of novelty . . .

“And there is sadly, we must frankly confess, largely an indifferent world, indifferent perhaps because of its preoccupation with problems which it regards as its own.”

Bernard S. Deutsch, president of the American Jewish Congress, voiced his disappointment over the fact that “the sympathetic interest expressed in League of Nations circles for the refugees from Germany, and the condemnation by Great Britain of Hitler terrorism, have not found concrete reinforcement in a wider interpretation of the terms of the mandate.”

“This factor need not discourage us,” he said. “Jews have built up Palestine and can and will continue to place themselves full force behind it.”

Earlier in his address he took credit for the American Jewish Congress in that its “delegation to the Peace Conference was responsible, in so important a degree, for the sympathetic interest of President Woodrow Wilson, which led to the establishment of the mandate for Palestine under the protection of the League of Nations.”

E. M. WARBURG APPRAISAL

Edward M. Warburg devoted his talk to an estimate of the progress of Hebrew University, on Mount Scopus, which will celebrate its tenth anniversary on April 1.

“The Hebrew University has become the responsibility of Jews all over the world, spiritually,” he said. “It must now become their financial responsibility.”

A cablegram from Dr. Judah L. Magnes, president of the University, was read before the conference. Its context follows:

PALESTINE A BLESSING

“Palestine, the Holy Land of three religions, is being sanctified again by the love and idealism of the Jewish people and its sons and daughters who are privileged to work here. The Jewish National Home, serving both as a place of refuge and as a spiritual and intellectual center for the Jewish people, can bring a blessing to the Jewish people wherever they are, to all the people of the Near and Middle East, of which Palestine is the important gateway, and to all mankind, whom the Jewish people have in one form or another always served.”

CHAMPION OF OPPRESSED

Professor Louis Finkelstein spoke of the prophetic spirit of the Jew, which has arisen in the past to champion the oppressed of all races, and which, he said, can better be preserved in a Jewish Palestine than in any other environment. He also pointed out that the bigoted tyrants of history have in the end always served as disguised boons to Jewry, in that they have touched off sparks which have led to magnificent achievements.

Maurice Samuel pointed to “the grave danger which threatens Jewish Palestine today, namely, a disproportionate concentration of forces on urban development which he attributed to “the weakness of our public funds—particularly the Keren Kayemeth or Jewish National Fund.” He declared that “Jewish Palestine can continue to grow healthily only through public funds” and that “private capital will always, in Palestine as elsewhere, be a constructive element as long as it is controllable, a destructive element when it cannot be controlled.”

MISS SZOLD CABLES FELICITATIONS

The following cablegram was received from Henrietta Szold in Palestine:

“Congratulations on the institution of Palestine Day, which serves as a new bond between the American diaspora and the land of Israel, guaranteeing a mutual stimulus and spiritual benefit.”

A telegram was received from Ludwig Lewisohn, in his capacity as president of the Vermont Zionist District, expressing regret at his inability to attend, and declaring that “the redemption of the Jewish people is inseparable from the creative redemption of Palestine.”