A plea to the Zionist Organization of America to enlarge its sphere of influence by adoption of a program for the strengthening of the cultural life of the Jewish people was sounded here today by Morris Rothenberg in his presidential address to the thirty-seventh annual convention of the organization.
Pointing out that “every aspect of Jewish life in the Diaspora reacts upon the Jewish Homeland, just as the Jewish Homeland will eventually react upon the Diaspora,” Mr. Rothenberg proposed a five-point program of Zionist endeavor in addition to the primary task of Palestine upbuilding.
Mr. Rothenberg’s address, which formed the basis of a discussion on “What Should Be The Future Program of the Zionist Organization of America?” in which leading Zionists participated, was enthusiastically received by the convention.
A vitriolic atack by Louis Lipsky on the British government for erecting barriers against Jewish masses anxious to reach Palestine was climaxed by his proposal for the convocation of an all-Jewish United States conference to mobilize Jewish opinion “to persuade Great Britain as the mandatory power to open the doors of Palestine to hundreds of thousands of East European Jews now being persecuted.”
Following Lipsky’s address, Charles A. Cowen introduced a resolution to call a conference not later than December of this year. Jacob DeHaas, A. H. Friedland, Abraham Goldberg and Robert Szold participated in the discussion. The resolution was passed overwhelmingly, only one delegate voting against it.
DeHaas said he was for the resolution, but asked the convention to consider it seriously since it was a most important step. Lipsky declared that “in every land of East-
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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.
