Leading Non-zionists Emphasize Significance of Forthcoming Conference

“Palestine deserves the support of Jews all over the world,” is the view of James Marshall, son of Louis Marshall, who has taken an active interest in the movement to promote a united front among the Jews of America in connection with the proposed enlarged Jewish Agency. Mr. Marshall, in a special statement issued on the eve of the Non-Zionist Conference, to be held at the Hotel Biltmore on October 20-21, defines his attitude toward Palestine as follows:

“Although for a long time I doubted the wisdom of the entire Palestinian project and its possibility of attaining success, after visiting the country a year and a half ago and spending a month there and in the vicinity, I have no hesitancy in saying that Palestine deserves the support of Jews all over the world.

“Anyone who has come in contact with the people now in Palestine and seen the results of their heroic efforts and been witness to the vitality of their Judaism, cannot question the importance of this movement as a reinvenating influence in the lives of the Jewish people in the Diaspora. While the land is too small to affect to any appreciable extent relief of the economic position of Jewry of Eastern Europe, the freedom of the Jews of Palestine from political and economic oppression will afford them the opportunity of developing new and broader aspects of their relations to other peoples and give new impetus to their intellectual and spiritual lives.

“The historic background afforded by Palestine presents an element which is not present in any other land. The people there are conscious of this. Our support of their efforts will yield richly to us in greater self-respect and pride in the recuperative powers of our old traditions.”

“The most important Jewish gathering ever held in this country,” is the manner in which David A. Brown, national chairman of the United Jewish Campaign, characterized the forthcoming Non-Zionist Conference.

“Since the inception of Zionism thirty years ago, since the inauguration of the first Jewish colonies in Palestine forty-five years ago, no step taken within Jewry has been so fraught with fruitful possibilities as the calling of the Non-Zionist Conference.

“During the entire course of the modern Palestinian movement there has never been such a scientific study of the country as the one completed by the Joint Palestine Survey Commission. Never has the rapprochement on the subject of Palestine between the opposing Jewish sections been so near as at this moment. I regard the Non-Zionist Conference as the most important Jewish gathering ever held in this country, and perhaps the most important held in the world for a generation.

“The differences between the Zionist and non-Zionist Jews are, to my mind, as deep-seated as the differences between the Catholics and the Protestants. Any movement to bring the last two together would certainly be an historic event. To unite the Jews of the world upon the problem of Palestine would have seemed impossible but ten years ago. That this possibility has now become a probability and may in the near future become a reality is of surpassing import,” concluded Mr. Brown.

Ben Selling, leading philanthropist in the northwest, answering a series of questions submitted to him with regard to the Non-Zionist Conference, expressed his attitude on the problems facing the Conference as follows:

“I favor the cooperation of all Jewry to assist in the economic development of Palestine.

“I believe that the Jews in America should participate in the proposed Agency, the American Jews to control the Agency.

“I favor the cultural and spiritual development of Palestine as a center to which all Jews turn.

“I doubt if Palestine can in any way solve the economic problems of Eastern European Jewry.

“The upbuilding of Palestine is the concern of all Jewry and should not be delegated to any one organization.”