News Brief

Mr. d’Avigdor Goldsmidt was until recently President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews

The banquet held in one of the most important Jewish centers, in celebration of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s 15th anniversary, makes also on us, at this distance, a great impression. It impels us to give expression to our sentiments.

I therefore ask you to accept my congratulations and to communicate these few lines to the distinguished gathering.

The J.T.A., which is a most important instrument for the unification of scattered Jewry, is a sort of spiritual Eniv unifying the body of Jewry the world over. Its 15th anniversary recalls to our mind the “fifteen weapons”, which the Mishna calls the “Chamisha asar klei-Zayin”; for the J.T.A. is an intellectual arsenal embodying all the spiritual weapons which may serve for our defense.

We Jews of Roumania have particular reason to be grateful to the J.T.A. The God of history willed it that four kinds of Jews should be unified within the Greater Roumania into a single new type, and so, with quantity and quality, become a powerful factor in the general body of Jewry. Now comes the J.T.A. and joins us with the whole of Israel, carries our aspirations as well as our cry of sorrow to whithersoever Jews live. It brings to us the old-new world of Palestine, the European occident and the ideal realism of America, by means of the perfected instruments of modern journalism.

We therefore, on this festival of the J.T.A., call out to you with our whole heart: Forward with God!

AGUDAS YISROEL WORLD ORGANIZATION, FRANKFURT AM/MAIN

We learn that your organization is celebrating on March 15th the 15th anniversary of its inception. We do not wish to fail to express to you on this occasion our heartiest felicitations and blessings. The information service which the J.T.A. has created by difficult work, it felt today, but all those who are interested in the public life of Jewry, as an indispensable factor in Jewish communal life and Jewish policy as a whole. It is almost unimaginable that there ever was a time when we lacked this vehicle of Jewish public opinion. We express our hope that it will be possible for you despite the difficult times which make the functioning of your enterprise more vital than ever, to develop the J.T.A. and to build it up and place it in the service of all aims which wish to promote the strengthening of the genuine interests of Jewish unity.

O. E. D’AVIGDOR GOLDSMID, LONDON

The J.T.A. has during its fifteen years of existence rendered conspicuous service to World Jewry by the circulation of reliable and impartial reports of events. I feel confident that by adherence to this policy it will, in these difficult times, contribute substantially to the solution of Jewish problems.

I wish the Agency every success in the future.