Returning late yesterday afternoon on the Conte di Savoia from a month’s Mediterranean cruise, during which he spent four days in Palestine, Felix M. Warburg, banker and philanthropist and a former chairman of the administrative committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, said that the greatest need of the Jews in Palestine today is more land.
“If the Jews in Palestine don’t get more land,” he declared, “they will be driven into the trades.”
When apprised by reporters of the attack on himself and international bankers made this week by Father Coughlin, Mr. Warburg tersely replied:
“Let the Christians take up Father Coughlin,” he said. “They are responsible for him.”
Asked about the anti-Semitism of the radio priest, he was equally caustic:
“I can’t read his mind.”
Discuss Palestine, Mr. Warburg was more talkative.
“Its development,” said the man who has made five trips to the Jewish National Homeland and who has followed its developments carefully, “is remarkable. At present, progress is halted by a shortage of the right kind of labor.”
Mr. Warburg stated that High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, with whom he had private conversations, was personally favorable to increased immigration. He refused, however, to make any predictions as to whether a greater number of labor immigration certificates would be issued for the next six months’ period.
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.
