Weizmann Hails U.S. Jewry’s Rescue Role As Detroit Welfare Parley Opens

Tribute to American Jewry’s affirmative answer to “the question of Jewish survival in lands of oppression” was voiced last night by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, before the opening session of the seventh annual General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds. Attending the meeting, which will end on Monday, are more than 450 delegates from 144 communities in the United States and several thousand guests.

Tonight’s session of the convention was devoted to a discussion of the General Jewish Council, led by President Henry Monsky of B’nai B’rith, Louis Lipsky, of the American Jewish Congress, and Simon Shetzer, president of the Detroit Jewish Community Council. Present-day trends in welfare work were discussed in an afternoon session presided over by Elias Mayer, of the Chicago Jewish Charities, and in which participants included Harry Greenstein, executive director of the Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore; Edward Greensfelder, president of the Jewish Social Service Bureau of St. Louis; Joseph H. Hagedorn of Philadelphia and Julian H. Krolik of Detroit.

Other speakers at the opening session, held at Temple Beth El, included Clarence E. Pickett, executive secretary of the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers); Dr. Solomon Lowenstein, vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee; Fred Butzel, chairman of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit, who introduced Dr. Weizmann, and William Rosenwald, president of the National Refugee Service, who presided.

In his address, Dr. Weizmann praised the role of the Council in effectively canalizing American Jewry’s “impulses of devotion” toward the cause of aiding stricken European Jewry and supporting the Jewish national home in Palestine.

“In the world I have but recently left,” he said, “there are today literally millions of Jews who find in the American Jewish community a great reservoir of material and spiritual strength. Beaten down by years of ruthless persecution, the Jewish communities of central and eastern Europe have been forced in large measure to relinquish their leadership in Jewish life throughout the world, and have watched with tortured hope the assumption by American Jewry of pre-eminence in the communal existance of Jewries everywhere.”

“Year by year,” Dr. Weizmann continued, “it has been made evident through the increasingly generous contributions of Jews throughout this country–contributions which have in many cases indicated real sacrifice–that the great body of American Jewry has answered affirmatively the question of Jewish survival in lands of oppression, and has determined to avail itself of every opportunity for supporting the Jewish national home in Palestine.”

Citing the fate that has overwhelmed European Jewries, Dr. Weizmann emphasized that the contrast between them and the Jewish community of Palestine “lies in the fact that the Yishub, with self-reliance and single-minded purpose, may map out its own chart of the future.” He added that “no threat–internal or external” would deter the Palestine Jewish community from carrying forward its upbuilding task.

Mr. Pickett, speaking on “Our Part in American Security,” asserted that in America’s handling of the refugee problem lay “one of the great opportunities to show the effective functioning of democracy and even to give relief to unemployment.” He said that if the problem were handled with skill “we will in the process bring to America a significant social and economic contribution.”

Mr. Pickett scouted fears of competition by German immigrants, citing the experience of Britain where 11,000 refugees gave jobs to 15,000 native Britons and similar experiences in the United States.

For greater effectiveness in checking any anti-Semitism arising from the refugee problem, the Quaker leader urged increased efforts by Jewish and Christian organizations to orient into American life the present immigration from central Europe.

Mr. Pickett, citing the “close relationship which has grown up between Jews and Quakers during these trying days,” voiced the hope that it might develop and “bear fruit in statesmanlike planning for the benefit of our whole American life.”