Dr. Stephen S. Wise last night told the thirteenth annual convention of Junior Hadassah that there will be “no end of Jewish grievances unless officials in Palestine learn they must deal with the Jews not as an invading army of beggars, but a people returning to its rightful home.”
The president of the Zionist Organization said to 1,000 delegates from 40 states that “no miracle of Palestine has been more wondrous than the miracle of Palestine’s revival in our day.” He also demanded that if the Arabs refuse to testify before the Royal Commission publicly, they should not be heard.
Junior Hadassah Cultural Fellowship keys were presented to 20 members at a banquet tonight and a large number of members received fellowship certificates. Rabbi Edward L. Israel spoke on, “Communism and Zionism — Moscow or Jerusalem.”
The decision to enlarge Meir Shfeyah, Junior Hadassah’s children’s home in Tel Aviv, to accommodate at least 150 children because of the added necessity for child welfare resulting from recent disorders was announced this morning by Pauline Englander in a report on Palestine activities.
A total of $47,570 — an increase of $2,398 over the previous year — was raised during 1935-36 for the Palestinian Fund and $4,784 for the Administration Fund, according to a report this morning by Molly Sondak, fund-raising chairman.
Speaking before Dr. Wise last night, Mrs. Edward Jacobs, New York, president of Senior Hadassah, reviewed 25 years in Hadassah work in the light of changing social conditions. She said that “the interest of women in rebuilding the Jewish national home in Palestine is not motivated by philanthropy, but a desire to create new values, a new home for driven people.”
Speaking on the “miracle” of Palestine’s rebirth, Dr. Wise said it had been wrought “by little less than divine sacrifice on the part of its settlers and rebuilders.” He praised the role of Hadassah and Junior Hadassah in this work.
Dr. Wise declared that Hadassah as a Jewish witness before the Royal Commission in Palestine had spoken “in open session for the world to hear and if the Arabs refuse to testify they ought not to be heard.”
“The commission must not invite a few Arab leaders for private conferences,” he asserted. “It the Arabs boycott the commission, the latter should boycott them and say the Arabs are afraid to speak what is in their minds.”
Declaring Palestine officials must deal with the Jews as a people returning to its rightful home, he said, “I call upon you to win public opinion in America for the Palestine cause and move Britain to be just to Jewish demands.”
Miss Sulamith Schwartz, former Junior Hadassah president, now living in Palestine, said the charge that Jews were dispossessing Arabs from the land was “unjustifiable.” She added that “only 528 Arabs have been displaced during the course of more than a decade and in every instance they have not only been adequately compensated but given land elsewhere or in the same area.”
Greeting were received from Henrietta Szold and Meir Shfeyah.
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