An appeal to President-Elect Dwight Eisenhower to “use his good offices as the next President” for the purposes of speedily bringing about an honorable peace between Israel and the Arab states in the interests of the United States and world peace, was voiced here today in a resolution adopted by 3,000 delegates to the 29th annual convention of the National Committee for Labor Israel. The parley also adopted a resolution thanking President Truman and various of his Cabinet officers for their aid to Israel and the Histadrut.
The convention also set the sum of $4,744,000 as the goal of the 1953 Israel Histadrut campaign. This amounts to 40 per cent of the Histadrut’s budget of $11,860,000. The American Trade Union Council for Histadrut, a group working among American labor unions, earlier agreed to raise $1,000,000 of the campaign goal.
Secretary of Labor Maurice J. Tobin, who addressed the session today, paid tribute to the late President Weizmann, attacked Communists in the trade union movement, and lashed out at the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, contrasting Israel’s “open-door” immigration policy with the restricted policy of the United States. Sec. Tobin was presented with a scroll of honor by the organization in recognition of his aid to the Jewish State and to the Israel labor federation.
Asserting that the U.S. immigration policy “does not have the same farsightedness and the same greatness of spirit” as the Israel immigration policy, Sec. Tobin asserted that “the McCarran Act is a denial of the very principles that have made this nation great.” He added: “If Israel can open wide its gates, there is no moral, justification for the United States to keep them practically closed to many national, racial and religious groups.”
George Meany, newly-elected president of the American Federation of Labor, told the delegates that at the Prague trial the Communists added the “bogey” of Zionism to Trotzkyism and Titoism. He asserted that the “Soviets are engaged in a wholesale effort to exterminate Judaism” and charged that Jews have been forced out of the professions, arts and trade unions in the U.S.S.R. Mr. Meany also pledged the continued help of the AFL to Israel and the Histadrut.
Associate Supreme Court Justice William C. Douglas was presented at the convention with the “1952 Histadrut Humanitarian Award “in “grateful appreciation of his outstanding efforts in fostering sympathetic understanding between the people of the United States and the State of Israel, and for his warm encouragement of the cause of the Histadrut.” The award has previously been presented to President Truman and Vice President Barkley.
Joseph Schlossberg and Isaac Hamlin were re-elected national chairman and secretary-general, respectively, of the Committee. Max Zaritsky, honorary president of the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union, was re-elected treasurer.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
