Pledge to Liberate Nazi-tortured European Jewry Given at Ussishkin Memorial Meeting

A declaration expressing solidarity with the Jews of Palestine and pledging the rededication of the Jews of the United States to the liberation of Nazi-tortured European Jewry was adopted here tonight at a mass meeting arranged by the Jewish National Fund of America to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of M. M. Ussishkin, who died a year ago today in Jerusalem.

Similar memorial meetings were held tonight in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities. In Jerusalem an all-day conference of the Jewish National Fund took place today culminating with a memorial meeting for the late JNF president on Mt. Scopus, where Ussishkin is buried. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine who is now in this country, sent a message to the New York gathering expressing his grief over the fact that his impaired health and physician’s orders did not permit him to be present at the meeting to join in tribute to Ussishkin. He did not permit him to be present at the meeting to join in tribute to Ussishkin. He emphasized in his message that the land which the JNF is redeeming “is the most priceless possession in preparation for the establishment of the Jewish Commonwealth.”

Sounding the keynote of the meeting, Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the JNF in America, said that had there been a Jewish Commonwealth established in Palestine during Ussishkin’s lifetime, he would undoubtedly have been chosen as either President or head of its legislative Assembly. He credited Ussishkin with preparing Palestine for its present vital role in the war effort of the United Nations. Dr. Stephen S. Wise, eulogizing Ussishkin, stated that “he takes his place in Zionist history by the side of such men as Dr. Herzl, Justice Brandeis, and Dr. Weizmann.” Other speakers at the meeting here included Rabbi Samuel Brodt, World Mizrachi leader, and Hayim Greenberg, leader of the Zionist laborites.

The declaration adopted at the meeting, read by Mendel N. Fisher, executive director of the Jewish National Fund of America, also expresses “fullest confidence in the final victory of freedom,” salutes the armies of the United States, the armies of the United Nations in the Middle East, and the “brave armies of the Soviet Union now locked in bitter struggle with the enemies of civilization and humanity,” and concludes by pointing out that the goal of the Jews is “the establishment of a free Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine.”