Peace Drive, Palestine Aid Backed by Monsky at B’nai B’rith Parley in Tampa

Support of the movement to keep America out of war, an appeal for added backing for efforts to develop Palestine and condemnation of “Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Finland,” were voiced here today by President Henry Monsky of B’nai B’rith in his report to the opening session of the two-day 96th annual meeting of the fraternal organization’s executive committee.

“The paramount importance of peace and unity in America,” Mr. Monsky said, “emphasizes the need for unrelenting efforts to preserve democratic traditions and to protect our free nation from the impact of philosophies incompatible with the American concept of a race of free men.” He pledged the 125,000 members of the organization, the largest Jewish fraternal body in the country, “to full devotion to the cause of peace in America.”

Mr. Monsky urged that propaganda seeking to divide Americans, because it “threatens our unity and vitality” and constitutes “a menace to the peace and security of our nation,” should be “quarantined by the mobilization of the nation’s moral indignation.” He cited as an “example of the product of such irresponsible preachments” the 17 members of the Christian Front who are awaiting Grand Jury action on charges of sedition.

Reaffirming previous B’nai B’rith condemnation of communism as “equally as hateful” and dangerous as nazism and fascism, Mr. Monsky renewed the organization’s pledge to fight all such political ideologies menacing democracy.

Touching on the European situation, Mr. Monsky said American Jewry “cannot but share in the universal feeling of outrage against Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Finland.” He described the invasion as “another act in the tragedy being written by the nazi-fascist-communist dictatorships, a tragedy in which the Jews of Germany and Poland were cast as the first victims.”

Mr. Monsky asked the executive committee “to approve the policy which I have been pursuing of lending the man power and resources of the B’nai B’rith in greater measure than ever before toward the upbuilding of Palestine because it affords such a splendid opportunity for the resettlement and rehabilitation of the victims of persecution.”

Secretary Maurice Bisgyer reported to the committee a net increase of 19,000 members, bringing the total male membership to 82,860, as of October 1, 1939, a new high in B’nai B’rith’s history. He emphasized that the organization’s membership had nearly doubled in the past four years. Sixty-six new lodges were chartered in 1939, Mr. Bisgyer reported, bringing the total of active chartered lodges in the United States and Canada to 584 and in foreign countries to 62. The women’s senior and junior auxiliaries have 35,000 members, 49 auxiliaries having been established in 1939, Mr. Bisgyer declared.

Mr. Bisgyer also reported expenditures in excess of $25,000 for aid to refugee from Germany, Poland and elsewhere in central and eastern Europe and for emergency relief work in Poland, Finland and Chile.

As part of its effort to combat un-American propaganda and to fortify American democratic principles of equality and good will, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith distributed 1,771,309 pamphlets and reprints during 1939 to non-Jews, Sigmund Livingston, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission reported. His report also showed that the League had added 438 new “fireside discussion groups” during 1939, making a total of 2,568 such groups now functioning in 46 states, in Canada and 11 other foreign countries, as centers for disseminating the facts about Jews and Judaism; that members of the League’s speakers’ bureau delivered 4,534 addresses before non-Jewish audiences, including 760 in foreign languages; and distributed 10,150 books to schools, libraries and clergymen.

Aid rendered to 58 refugee students was cited as the year’s outstanding development in the 12 B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations by Dr. A.L. Sachar, national director. His report emphasized that the Hillel Foundations had initiated the movement by which Jewish fraternities and sororities gave room and board to refugee students while Hillel Refugee Aid Funds, raised by the students, or university-wide funds in which Hillel was the spearhead, furnished grants-in-aid for tuition and living expenses.