Jewish Army, Palestine Jewish Commonwealth Urged at Balfour Day Meeting

A resolution urging reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth after the war and calling upon the British Government to form a Jewish army for service in the Middle East was adopted by a Balfour Day-Brandeis mass meeting at Carnegie Hall last night. The meeting marked the twenty-fourth anniversary today of the Balfour Declaration and also was a memorial to Justice Brandeis.

The meeting heard Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, Senate majority leader; Sir Norman Angell, British publicist, and other speakers declare that fulfillment of the British pledge should be an integral part of the next peace settlement. The speakers also demanded creation of a Jewish army in the Near East.

Governor Herbert H. Lehman, who was unable to attend, sent a message in which he paid tribute to the late Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis as “a wise and powerful collaborator in the formulation of the Balfour Declaration.” The Governor also praised those Jewish pioneers who have gone to Palestine.

Another message from Senator Robert F. Wagner, Democrat, of New York, said that the American Palestine Committee, of which he is chairman, declares Palestine to be “an important bulwark on the democratic front” and that if the next peace is to be equitable and lasting, the Jewish national home must be an “integral part of the new world order.” Senator Wagner said the Jews of Palestine should be allowed to place a substantial armed force in the Middle East.

Senator Barkley urged admission into the British Middle Eastern command of a Jewish army under its own flag, as are the forces of the exiled French, Poles and Czechs. The meeting, which was under the chairmanship of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, also heard Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister of the exiled government of Czechoslovakia; Count Carlo Sforza, former Foreign Minister of Italy, and Count Jacques de Sieyes, representative in the United States of General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French movement.