The Labor Zionist movement in this country today issued a statement fully backing Israel and the Conference of World Jewish Organizations in their decisions to negotiate for obtaining from Germany reparations for Nazi-looted Jewish property.
“The Labor Zionist Movement of America, ” the statement says, “in support of the stand taken by Israel and the Jewish Agency, holds that such direct negotiations should be undertaken in order to obtain a maximum return of property. It is only justice that Germany should, in this manner, pay toward the absorption in Israel of those many thousands of survivors whom her persecution has made destitute and homeless.
“There has been, as indeed there should be, considerable discussion both in Israel and in American Jewry on the subject of whether or not to make demands upon Germany, and whether or not to negotiate with her representatives. With due respect to the sincere feelings of those who oppose any kind of contact with Germany, it should be said that Germany will not be ostracized from our present-day society of nations by a Jewish renunciation of the material debts of Germany to the Jewish people. Moreover, any Jewish failure to negotiate would now give Germany the full moral benefit of her declaration without compelling her to suit her actions to her words.
“But there has also been in Israel a considerable amount of pernicious and insincere propaganda, anti-Government rather than anti-German in character. Every democratically-minded Jew will have been shocked at the Herut attempt to intimidate the Knesset while in session and to sway the vote on this matter by a show of violence and brute force. We must also score as insincere the Mapam stand on this matter, for it is not dictated by any attitude to the Germans as such, but by a desire to cover up for the failure of Eastern Germany to give the slightest intimation of any readiness to make amends.
“There has been no objection from any quarter during the past six years, when individual Jews and organizations have claimed their property from Germany, even though this has entailed direct negotiation and, in many cases, proceedings in German courts. It is only logical that the far more considerable Jewish community property and the heirless property of individual Jews be claimed and put to the most constructive purpose of consolidating the State of Israel,” the statement concludes.
The statement was issued over the names of Baruch Zuckerman and Dr. Berl Frymer of the Labor Zionist Organization of America-Poale Zion; Meyer Brown and Louis Segal of Farband Labor Zionist Order; Dr. Sara Feder and Chaye Surchin of Pioneer Women; and Billy Goldfarb of Habonim, Labor Zionist youth.
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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.
