Says Z.O.A. Convention Should Accept Brandeis Memo and Ask Return of Judge Brandeis

The coming Zionist convention in Cleveland should accept the memorandum of the Brandeis group and ask Justice Brandeis to return to American Zioist leadership, writes Rabbi Louis I. Newman in the current issue of the San Francisco “Jewish Journal”. Rabbi Newman believes that the only way to avert a catastrophe in Zionism is the return of Justice Brandeis to leadership.

“The plan”, he says, “deserves the utmost scrutiny by all Zionists, but it mands above all else a change of heart on the part of those who have until now made impossible the return of Justice Brandeis to the leadership of American Zionism”.

Rabbi Newman believes that if Justice Brandeis had remained in control of the American Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency would have taken a different form from what it is at present.

With regard to the memorandum that has just been presented by the Brandeis group, Rabbi Newman regrets that it does not call for the immediate assumption of leadership by the Brandeis group, Rabbi Newman regrets that it does not call for the immediate assumption of leadership by the Brandeis forces, and he believes that Zionists should unite in a concerted petition that the Justice take control immediately upon the decision of the Cleveland convention, though in this connection he also says:

“Justice Brandeis wishes merely to clear the scene for action. Zionists today are not merely a nation at warfare, but at the moment we are fighting with our backs to the wall. The closing of the doors to immigrants is the coup de grace to Zionist hopes. The Jewish Agency, whatever the reasons, has not yet proved the loudly-heralded Messianic Saviour.”

Finally Rabbi Newman says:

“I petition my fellow-Zionists, whatever the disagreements of the past, to think of Palestine in travail; I beg of them to ask whether the Zionist Organization is really as now constituted an effective instrument for its chief task—not to give political adventures to us in “Galuth”—but to rebuild Palestine as a Jewish Homeland. The Arabs are irreconcilable; our financial enterprises are halted; our reputation with world Liberals is unfavorable; the British are vacillating at one moment and unmistakably hostile the next. Unless we take the necessary steps for rehabilitation, Zionism will take its place among the lost causes of Jewish history”.