A vigorous endorsement of the demand for a Jewish National Home in Palestine was given today by Wendell Willkie, in a message sent to a mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall here to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration by the British Government on Nov. 2, 1917.
At the same time Senator Elbert D. Thomas of Utah, ranking member of the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate, addressing the gathering, demanded the immediate proclamation of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine as one of the democratic war aims.
In his message, wired to the organizations sponsoring the meeting, which included the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, the American Palestine Committee, the Free World Association and other. Mr. Willkie pointed out that his plea was based upon a survey made on his recent visit to Palestine in the course of his world tour as President Roosevelt’s emissary. “Your case for a national home, he stated. “has always rested upon historic rights and international law. Hitler’s program of extermination of the Jewish people has made it a case for the conscience of mankind. The doors of Palestine will have to be opened for the homeless Jews of Central and Eastern Europe who will survive this war. The extent of that immigration must be measured by the needs of the Jewish people. While one cannot foresee the exact organization which will follow this war the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine in fulfillment of the promise contained in the Balfour Declaration must find its rightful place in the new world of tomorrow.”
Senator Thomas, who was the principal speaker of the evening, declared: “We demand recognition of the Jewish national home as one of the United Nations. We demand the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine as one of our war aims and peace aims. We ask that the Jewish people be given direction over its homeland, unhampered direction of its immigration and of colonization. We ask, moreover, that these things be recognized and that these policies be declared now.
Dr. Chaim Weizman, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, wired that “the Balfour Declaration has stood the test of time despite many setbacks and attempts by enemies to subvert its purpose. It is today the only answer to the homelessness of the Jewish people.”
The meeting adopted a resolution asking that “a place of equality be secured the Jewish people, and that to that end there be established a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine integrated within the structure of a revived and reconstituted society of nations.”
Speakers at the meeting included Alvarez Del Vayo, former Foreign Minister of the Spanish Republic; Baron Guy de Rothschild; Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, of the Union Theological Seminary; Dr. Nahum Goldmann; Dr. Stophen S. Wise, who presided; and representatives of many of the United Nations. Messages were received from Governor Herbert H. Lehman, Senator Robert F. Wagner and other notables.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
