The Position in the Berlin Jewish Community: Statements by Zionists and Liberals

Both the Zionist and the Liberal Parties in the Berlin Jewish Community have adopted resolutions in which they set cut their position with regard to the serious conflict which broke out at yesterday’s meeting of the Representative Assembly of the Community, when the Zionist members left the meeting-hall, and declared that they would seek to establish a separatist community.

The resolution of the Zionist People’s Party reads as follows:

The Jewish People’s Party, anxious to maintain the unity of the Jewish Community and to establish at this time of serious political and economic danger the essential conditions for peaceful and fruitful work in the Community, has introduced fresh proposals with a view to reaching a compromise agreement.

The Liberal majority on the Board has not accepted these compromise resolutions in this conciliatory spirit. The Liberal majority of the Representative Assembly has not held it necessary even to consider these compromise resolutions. Instead, it has by the brutal exercise of majority powers prevented all discussion at the Representative Assembly.

The members of the fraction of the Jewish People’s Party, therefore decided to leave the meeting, in order to express in this way the powerful protest of Berlin Jewry against the tremendous danger of a split in the united community. The Jewish People’s Party calls upon all responsible Jews in Berlin to stand with it in the struggle to uphold the unity of the Community, by according equal rights to all the movements included in it.

The resolution adopted by the Liberal majority at a meeting held immediately after the meeting of the Representative Assembly had been broken up, with Dr. Heinrich Stern, the President of the Assembly, in the chair, and with Dr. Alfred Wiener, representative of the Religious Central Party, present, reads:

The Representative Assembly of the Jewish Community of Berlin is now more than ever faced by the need of carrying out a number of definite tasks. Yet, for the past few months it has constantly been called upon to engage in unfruitful discussions about differences of outlook on Jewish problems. Realising this fact, the President of the Liberal fraction, Dr. Kurt Fleischer, made the following statement at the meeting when the question of the attitude of the Community Board on the Jewish national question was brought up:

Our friends in the Community Board, and the Liberal fraction, have emphasised it repeatedly that we place the greatest value on the maintenance of the united Community. All the debates on our attitude on the Jewish problem have regularly led to greater differences. The question which is now on the agenda has already been fully discussed at the meeting of the Representative Assembly held on February 12th., 1932. The general debate on the budget again provides an opportunity for taking a stand on Jewish political questions. To-day we gave a representative of the Zionist minority a further opportunity of explaining at length his position on inner Jewish matters. We believe that we have thus discharged our duty to-day towards the Jewish People’s Party, and we now move the closure of the debate.

After the adoption of the resolution for the closure of the debate, the fraction of the Jewish People’s Party left the hall in a body, and some of its members abused those representatives who remained behind. Adherents of the Jewish People’s Party in the gallery created a disturbance and abused and threatened the members of the Representative Assembly who had remained behind, and made it impossible for them to continue the proceedings. The disturbers of the peace were supported in this by certain members of the Jewish People’s Party fraction, who joined them in the gallery, and when the President of the Assembly, Dr. Heinrich Stern, had ordered the officials of the community to clear the gallery, they resisted these officials, and members of the Assembly belonging to the Jewish People’s Party delivered inflammatory speeches from the gallery. In view of this violation of the dignity of the Community, the Chairman was compelled to suspend the meeting. The Representative Assembly will see to it that the dignity of the Community and the honour of Judaism should be protected against such violation in the future. It will also continue in the future to endeavour to carry out its task to the benefit of the whole of the Community.

Dr. Alfred Wiener, the representative of the Religious Centre Party, has made the following statement to the J.T.A.:

The principal demand of the Religious Centre Party for peace and Unity in the Community is the depolitisation of the religious community. We cannot allow constant discussions on party lines in a community whose objects are religious and social. Religious and social questions cannot be settled by voting according to party programmes. If we acted up to this fundamental point, to which not only our own members, but also members of the Liberal Party and of the Jewish People’s Party have constantly declared that they subscribe, we should never have had serious clashes in the Representative Assembly like those which took place on April 7th. The scenes which occurred after the members of the Jewish People’s Party left the hall call for the severest condemnation. It is unheard of that representatives who remain behind should be abused, spat at and menaced with chairs. However indignant our colleagues of the People’s Party may have been, it is very unfortunate that they should have gone up into the public gallery and delivered vehement speeches from there.

Perhaps it is as well, Dr. Wiener added, that the tension between the Liberals and the People’s Party, which has existed for months, and has been growing from week to week, should come to a head. Perhaps it was inevitable, in order to clear the way to a more dignified relationship, and to make possible the peaceful collaboration of these two great parties.

An opportunity must be provided soon for ensuring the continued participation of the Jewish People’s Party in the great Berlin Jewish Community. But the primary condition is that the Representative Assembly must be loyal to the fundamental principle of the Centre Party, which is that the Representative Assembly of the Community must be a common ground for peaceful and concrete work on behalf of the united Jewish Community of Berlin, so that it should never again become the scene of such disturbances as occurred on April 7th.

If the explosion of April 7th. has cleared the air, we shall be successful. The Religious Centre Party for Peace and Unity in the Community will do all it can to stand out against party polities and to secure conciliation and peace.