Delegates to represent New York City at the sessions of the American Jewish Congress, to be held at the Hotel Willard, Washington, May 20 to 22, were elected Wednesday night, at a meeting of constituent organizations, held at the Hotel Pennsylvania.
The conference will consider further action on the situation facing the German Jews. One session will be devoted to a discussion on the subject of the World Jewish Congress. Other sessions are to discuss organizational problems and the reports of important Congress committees.
New York City will be represented by 320 delegates elected by local organizations and 65 delegates elected by national groups. The meeting ratified the election of the delegates. The New York delegation will be headed by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, honorary president and Bernard S. Deutsch, president of the American Jewish Congress; Borough President Samuel Levy, George Z. Medalie, United States Attorney; Louis Lipsky, national chairman of the American Palestine Campaign; M. Maldwin Fertig, counsel to Governor Lehman, and Mark Eisner, president of the Board of Higher Education.
Among the other delegates elected are Robert Szold, Dr. Horace M. Kallen, Joseph Schlossberg, Judge Aaron Levy, Bernard G. Richards, Dr. N. Ratnoff, Nathan D. Perlman, Nelson Ruttenberg, Professor M. Kaplan, George I. Fox and Judge Gustave Hartman.
Rabbi Wise, who was introduced as the principal speaker of the evening by Z. Tygel, chairman of the meeting, derided Chancellor Hitler’s “peace” speech, as the “rankest hypocrisy”.
“How can the self-respecting and intelligent nations of the world believe Hitler’s declaration of peace,” asked Rabbi Wise, “when within his own borders, he is waging relentless and damnable war against a portion of the population?”
“The Russian anti-Semites were amateurs compared to the Hitlerites. At the most they killed a few hundred at a time. The Nazi ‘pogrom-stchiks’ threaten the lives and well-being of 600,000 people. Only the other day a German-Jew said to me, ‘there are only three courses open to the Jews in Germany; economic extermination, suicide or emigration’. If we here do nothing, it will be extermination for German Jewry. This is the word of Hitler himself, in his speeches he used the German word ‘vernichten’. We are told that we should leave it to the German Jews to negotiate with their own government. But there is no one to negotiate with. There are no negotiations in Germany—only orders—and orders have been given to destroy the German Jews.”
Other speakers who addressed the meeting included: Judge Hartman, Professor Chayim Chernowitz, Mr. Perlman, Dr. Ratnoff and Mr. Fox.
Over 95 local organizations as well as many national groups were represented at the meeting.
A resolution thanking Joel Slonim, prominent Yiddish newspaperman, for his efforts in connection with the anti-Hitler demonstration in New York City, was unanimously adopted by the steering committee of the American Jewish Congress which directed the protest.
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