Four of a delegation of 300 rabbis called at the white House today and left a petition urging that Jewish refugees be admitted to the United Nations, neutral countries and Palestine and that a special inter-governmental agency be created to deal with the problem.
More than 100 of the rabbis were from New York. The others came from Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Columbus and other cities. Rabbis Israel Rosenberg, Wolf Gold and B.L. Levinthal of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States, and Solomon N. Friedman of the Union of Grand Rabbis, were received by Marvin McIntyre, one of the President’s secretaries. The visit was sponsored by the Emergency Committee to save the Jewish people of Europe.
Earlier, Vice-President Henry A. Wallace and a score of congressmen greeted the delegation on the capital steps. The petition was read in Hebrew by Rabbi Eliezer Silver, co-president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, and in English by Rabbi Aaron Burack of New York. Among the congressmen who welcomed the Rabbis were speaker Sam Rayburn of the House of Representatives, and Senators Alben W. Barkley and Charles L. McNary, majority and minority leaders of the upper house. The rabbis then went to the Lincoln Memorial. On the steps. Rabbi Isaac Horowitz led a memorial prayer for the dead of Europe. The group joined in prayer for the President and the United Nations. They then sang the Star Spangled Banner in Hebrew.
Earlier in the day, Bishop James Cannon, Jr. of the Methodist Church, calls at a press conference for “something more than soft, sweet words,” to help the persecuted Jews of Europe. At the same time, a call to set aside Sunday, October 10, as a Day of Prayer in Christian churches for Jews of the world, was issued by the Right Reverend Henry St. George Tucker, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. Francis J. McConnell, resident bishop of the Methodist Church, and the Rev. Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, moderator of the Presbyterian Church.
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