Split in AJC Ranks is Avoided by Compromise on Direct Vote

The 345 delegates who attended the extraordinary session of the American Jewish Congress which concluded here yesterday, left today for their communities in various parts of the country. Uppermost in their minds was the compromise reached at the Congress providing that direct elections of delegates to the American Jewish Congress be held not before 1937.

The compromise provides that only two-thirds of the delegates in 1937 are to be elected by direct voting. The remainder are to be appointed by various national organizations throughout the country.

THREATENED SPLIT

This compromise was reached as a result of severe opposition by the Labor bloc to the recommendations of the administrative committee of the Congress, which urged complete abolition of the system of direct elections. The Labor bloc threatened to break away from the Congress if direct elections were abolished.

A budget of $150,000 for the ensuing year was adopted by the special session of Congress. This sum is to be raised by an assessment on national organizations, individual membership and quotas imposed on local community councils of the Congress, which will be organized as permanent groups throughout the country.

COMMITTEE ENLARGED

Reorganization of the Congress machinery did not meet opposition at the session. Henceforth the administrative committee of the Congress will consist of ninety-five members, sixty-five of them residing in New York.

The importance of the administrative committee will be much diminished by the decentralization system which the Congress here voted. This system provides for the creation of seven regional chairmen, six of whom were elected at the session. The six elected are Dr. Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore, Seaboard Region; Samuel Kelesky, New England Region; Rabbi Solomon Goldman of Chicago, Midwest Region; Professor H. Ettlinger of the University of Texas, Southwest Region; P. Miller, Eastern Pennsylvania Region comprising also Southern New Jersey and Delaware; and Oscar Robins, Tri-State Region, comprising Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Oregon.

Rabbi Stephen Wise, who was elected president of the Congress, in accepting the presidency, stated that he returns to active harness only because a veteran was needed in these days of crisis in Jewish life. He pledged himself to “lead the American Jewish Congress to the end that in conjunction with all the forces of civilization in America and in every land we American Jews will not compromise with Hitlerism but will help to destroy it.”

One of the resolutions adopted by the session endorses the work of rebuilding Palestine and promises co-operation in all the fund-raising efforts for Jewish work in Palestine.