Colonel Kisch, member of the Jewish Agency Executive, has interviewed the High Commissioner, Sir John Chancellor, and has lodged a vigorous protest with him against a flogging sentence imposed by a Jewish magistrate named Zuckerman, a former clerk recently raised to the bench, on a Jewish boy of twelve.
A Jewish family from Kurdistan, Israel Ezra, his wife Zilba, their daughter, and the boy were brought before him on a charge of over staying the three months period allowed on their tourist visas.
Sentencing Israel Ezra, his wife Zilba and their daughter to pay a fine of £1. each and costs, the magistrate, unable to fine the twelve-year old boy, gave orders that he should be given three strokes.
In addition, the magistrate recommended the High Commissioner to exercise his right to deport this immigrant family, who admitted they had overstayed the visa period of three months, but contended that they had applied for permission to be registered as immigrants and to be allowed to remain permanently in the country.
While it is not unusual for immigrants who have arrived on tourist visas to be brought up on a charge of evading the law, the flogging of the twelve-year old boy has stirred Jewish opinion in Palestine as few things have in recent years. The boy, as one writer has pointed out, has been ordered to be flogged for no other crime than that he accompanied his parents and was an accessory to their illegal act.
The Jewish lawyers in Jerusalem are contemplating taking action against the magistrate.
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