British Ambassador Guest of Honor at Luncheon (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
An Austrian Pro-Palestine Committee, composed of prominent statesmen and civic leaders, to further the work of upbuilding Palestine as the Jewish National Home, was formed here last night.
Count Mensdorff, Austrian representative to the League of Nations, was elected president of the committee. Other members of the committee’s praesidium are: former Prime Minister Von Beck, former Ambassador Dumba and Johann Kremetzki. A luncheon in honor of the praesidium of the Pro-Palestine Committee will be given on Saturday by Baron Louis Rothschild at the Rothschild Palace. The British Ambassador in Vienna will be the guest of honor.
President Hainisch and Prime Minister Seipel today received Nahum Sokolow, chairman of the Zionist Executive, prior to the issuance by the Government of a pro-Zionist declaration.
Among those who have become members of the Pro-Palestine Committee are Dr. Sigmund Freud, Professor Pick, president of the Vienna Kehillah, and Herr Benedict, editor of the “Neue Freie Presse,” which was at one time a strong opponent of the Zionist movement and which had on its staff the late Dr. Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist organization.
The work of the Pro-Palestine Committees in the various European countries was viewed as a valuable help not only for the reconstruction of Palestine but for the elimination of anti-Semitism, in the addresses and messages by prominent European statements which were delivered and read at the constituting session of the committee.
Herr Breisky, vice-chancellor of Austria, declared in his address that the Austrian people have the warmest sympathies for the ideal of a Zion rebuilt. They see in it a work of human welfare with which they sympathize. French Minister Dodart, in his message, declared that the work of the Pro-Palestine committees is capable of bringing about a change in the appreciation of Judaism and to effect public opinion in Europe to such a degree that anti-Semitism will remain merely a name of a disease which has long disappeared.
Count Bernstorff, German statesman, in his message stated that the non-Jews who became affiliated with the Pro-Palestine Committees also exercise the function that they as friends of the movement, bring about a realization in the Jewish world, of its own obligations toward the rebuilding of Palestine.
Prince di Scalea of Italy sent a message wishing success in the “common purpose.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
