The appointment of a commission of twenty-five, whose function it will be to reformulate the program and purposes of the American Jewish Congress with a view to revitalizing the movement was authorized at an extraordinary conference of the American Jewish Congress held all day Sunday at the Hotel Pennsylvania. The president, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, was authorized to appoint the commission to work in cooperation with the Administrative and Executive Committees of the Congress. The definite course of action for the future will be decided upon by the commission, which is also empowered to call the next Congress not later than December 30, 1928. Election of delegates would be held in October. Over 100 representatives of affiliated organizations were present at Sunday’s session.
“It would be a tragedy in American Jewish life if the Congress were to cease work now after ten years existence,” Dr. Wise declared in his address.
Unless the Congress receives immediate financial aid to clear its indebtedness of $40,000 and sufficient moral and numerical strength to justify its continued existence as a democratic body, Dr. Wise will resign from the presidency and the organization would face dissolution, it was brought out during the discussion.
With the exception of an address by Dr. Leo Honor of the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America who described his recent treatment at the hands of port authorities at Piraeus, Greece, and a plea that the Congress come to the aid of persecuted Russian Zionists by Dr. Chaim Arlasoroff, the discussion centered upon the need of reconstituting the Congress to become an organization elected on democratic lines as the representative of the Jewish masses in the United States and play a constructive role in Jewish life.
“The burden of responsibilities is heavier than I personally can bear,” Dr. Wise declared. “I cannot go on. No one will go on, under the circumstances. I cannot continue to worry about finances. Unless you say to me in unmistakable terms ‘The Congress will go on.’ I warn you that in a very short time the Congress may cease to go on. My deepest conviction is that the Congress must go on. The dissolution of the Congress will be a tragedy. Not because it deprives me of a forum. Personally I need no forum. But because if there is one free, untrammeled forum in Jewish life where men are free to express themselves it is the American Jewish Congress. If the Congress is ended I do not know of any forum which will be absolutely free.
“The question before the Jewish people is: ‘Do you want to give up the one institution which holds itself free to pass on the merits of the Jewish Agency?’
“There is a reign of Jewish terror in Jewish life, invoked by the voices of wealth, substance and power. A reign of terror on the part of those who control Jewish life and have deadened the Jewish soul,” he continued. “I’d like to see some representative of two thirds of the world at the Conference of the ‘Gedolim’ in London. Instead what have we? One or two or three or four rich Jews. That is precisciy the situation the Congress is fighting.
“If you let the Congress come to an end, we will be smothered by those who will decide without taking counsel with the Jewish people” was his warning.
The proposal for the formation of a Commission came from Louis Lipsky, President of the Zionist Organization of America who was given the floor with the following preface by Rabbi Wise: “I give the floor to the President of the Zionist Organization of America in the hope that he will accord me a similar privilege in Pittsburgh.”
The present status of the Congress was described by Mr. Lipsky as follows: “The American Jewish Congress has fallen into the habit of doing as best it can under the circumstances. The American Jewish Congress ought to psychoanalyze itself. Stirring addresses will never lead to reconstructive work. The American Jewish Congress was invoked under the stress of the moment. But it has principles and ideals which can be perpetuated. It has lost its representative character, has become corroded by time. You can’t make the Congress by throwing on the Agenda everything that the Administrative Committee has done. This floating along will destroy it. All those interested in the Congress should come together to see whether it is possible to make it mean more in Jewish life than it means today.”
The principles of popular rule which would be embodied in a reconstituted Congress were outlined by Bernard G. Richards, Executive Secretary of the Congress.
Mr. Richards in his report charged that the work done heretofore by other groups, was done in defiance of public opinion, citing the Crimean colonization and the Schwartzbard case, and in the instance of war relief not in consultation with European Jewish leaders. He declared also that every effort was made to halt the investigation of conditions in Roumania by the American Committee on the Rights of Minorities.
Others who partook in the discussion were Leo Wolfson, Baruch Zuckerman, Judge Gustave Hartman, Commissioner of Health Harris, Rabbi Heller of Cleveland, Ephraim Kaplan and Z Tygel.
Major Julius Peyser of Washington was named to the chairmanship of the Executive Committee of the Congress. Israel M. Thurman and I. Zahr were named first and second vice chairmen respectively.
A resolution was also adopted pledging moral and material aid to the persecuted Russian Zionists.
A sum of money was pledged by those present to defray the immediate expenses of the Congress.
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