Jewish National Fund Must Pay Income Tax: Claim for Exemption Dismissed with Costs: Fund’s Aim is Zi

The claim of the Jewish National Fund to exemption from income tax (reported in yesterday’s J.T.A. Bulletin) was dismissed by Mr. Justice Rowlatt in the King’s Bench Division this afternoon with costs.

The object of the Association could be most shortly described as Zionist, Mr. Justice Rowlatt said in giving Judgment. The intention, purpose and desire was to populate Palestine and the surrounding countries with Jews. That obligation which was said to be a religious obligation was an obligation towards the land of Palestine as the home of the Jewish race to be held in commemoration by them. The object was not to find a dwelling place for Jews who were dissatisfied with their present dwelling-places, but rather that Palestine should be populated by Jews. The dominant motive is towards the land and not towards the people, Mr. Justice Rowlatt declared. If Jews were well treated, were free from persecution, not subject to any special degree of poverty and under no necessity to leave the land in which they were, the desire to repopulate Palestine by Jews would still be there unabated.

In those circumstances wide powers were taken by the Association, but they were dominated by the purpose of settling Jews on the land they obtained in Palestine. The object was not a political one in the sense that the Association desired to create a Jewish State.

It has been argued, he went on, that this restoration of the land to Jewish occupancy was a religious object. That argument could not prevail. The promotion of religion meant the promotion of the spiritual teaching of the religious body and the maintenance of the spirit, doctrines, and observances upon which the religion rested, or from which it obtained its expression. If the religion enjoined the pursuit of some ulterior aim in itself secular, so that other people not of the religion might for different reasons support the same aim, the pursuit, promotion and achievement of the aim was not the promotion of religion.

It had also been said, Mr. Justice Rowlatt continued, that the objects of the Association were the relief of poverty. But the dominant purpose was not the amelioration of the condition of the individuals who were settled. The dominant purpose was the population of the Holy Land with Jews. The Association was not called into being by the contemplation of the poverty and sufferings of the Jews. It was thers fore not for the relief of poverty, though incidentally the Association did help a great many people who were in financial and economic straits. The Association, he concluded, thus did not come within any of the classes of organisation entitled to exemption.