Zionists in this country and Israel “would do well” to drop the “fictitious issue” raised by charges that American Zionists “are attempting to pressure the Government of Israel through the control of funds,” Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, former chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency executive and the American Zionist Emergency Council, declared here tonight.
Dr. Silver spoke at a $100-a-plate dinner at which some 500 guests celebrated the second anniversary of the United Nations resolution of Nov. 29, 1947, establishing the state of Israel through the partition of Palestine. The dinner, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, was sponsored by the Manhattan Region of the Zionist Organization of America.
“No one is trying to direct the policies of the Government of Israel,” Dr. Silver stated, “unless the existence of separate Zionist parties in the United States and elsewhere with their inherited programs which antedated by far the establishment of the state, is in itself a form of interference. In that case all Zionist parties, left, right, and center, should be abolished.”
The Zionist Organization of America, Dr. Silver, explained, has always insisted upon a decisive constitutional separation between the Government of Israel and the Jewish Agency of the World Zionist Movement. “We do not wish either to trespass upon the legitimate domain of the other,” he said. “The principle of separation works both ways. We will not interfere in the policies of the Government of Israel and we do not wish the leaders of the Government of Israel to interfere in matters which are the exclusive concern of the American Jewish community and of the Zionist bodies in the United States.”
DISCUSSES ISRAEL SITUATION AND JEWISH NEEDS IN U.S.
Reviewing the situation in which Israel finds itself, particularly in relation to the possibility of another Arab war, Dr. Silver said: “Those who have reduced the concept of the rebuilding of Israel to the charity level, of bringing in so many of our homeless Jews and of disposing of them in Israel, and who are today clamoring that local charity needs should take precedence over these needs, simply do not grasp what is involved in the colossal, exacting and prolonged task of building a state and making it secure. It will be years before Israel, born in the agony of war and surrounded by irreconcilable enemies on all sides, will feel itself sufficiently strong and secure to be able to divert its energies completely to the enterprises of peace.”
Turning to “Jewish self-haters of the stripe of the American Council for Judaism” who are “urging full stoppage of funds” for Israel, the veteran Zionist leader asked why it is wrong for Jews in this country to contribute their own money to the economy of Israel while it is proper for them to contribute as taxes through the Marshall Plan to the economy of a dozen foreign states. He pointed out that both the American people and government and the American Jews have contributed to persons fighting for freedom or who have been ravished by war or other disasters.
Among the other speakers at tonight’s dinner were Dr. Emanuel Neumann, former president of the Z.O.A., Daniel Frisch, president of the Z.O.A., Jacques Torczyner, vice-chairman of the Z.O.A. National Administrative Council and president of the Z.O.A.’s Manhattan Region, and Israel delegate to the U.N. Aubrey S. Eban. (Mr. Eban had not yet spoken when the Bulletin went to press.)
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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.
