Zionists Threaten to Disrupt Berlin Jewish Community: if Palestine Subsidy is Not Restored We Shall

If the Liberal Party, which is in control of the Berlin Jewish Community, goes on ignoring the wishes of the Zionist representatives, we shall secede and form a separatist National Religious Jewish Community, Dr. Klee, the leader of the Zionist People’s Party, declared to-day at the meeting of the Representative Council of the Berlin Jewish Community.

We are giving you a last warning, Dr. Klee said. We demand the annulment of the decision adopted by the Liberal Majority withdrawing the annual subvention of 2,000 Marks hitherto paid by the Berlin Jewish Community to the Heholuz, the organisation engaged in training Haluzim for the work in Palestine.

It is impossible to make any grant towards Zionist work, Herr Mayer, a Liberal member exclaimed, because Zionist work is a sin against the Jewish religion.

The President of the Community announced that the matter could not be dealt with at that meeting, and that he would reply to Dr. Klee’s demand at the next meeting.

The Liberal Jews were in control of the Berlin Jewish Community for seventy years, from 1854, when the Government recognised the Constitution of the Jewish Community of Berlin, until 1926, when the elections fought under the slogan of “break the Liberal domination”, resulted in the return of ten Liberal representatives against eleven of their combined opponents, eight Zionists and three Conservatives.

At the elections which took place in December 1930 the Liberals regained their majority, polling 41,000 votes and obtaining 24 seats against 26,000 votes and 15 seats obtained by the Zionist People’s Party and one seat obtained by the Poale Zion.

Similar difficulty has occurred in the Warsaw Jewish Community, which at the last elections passed from Zionist to Agudist control. A month ago, on January 15th., the new Executive of the Warsaw Jewish Community rejected a motion introduced by the Zionist members that the Community should give a subsidy of 10,000 zlotys as it did last year, when they held the majority, to the Keren Hayesod, the Jewish National Fund, and the Heholuz.

In October, when the new Warsaw Jewish Community Board met to appoint its officials, the Zionists complained that all their demands had been ignored, and handed in a declaration which said: “The majority has brutally suppressed the principle of proportional distribution of the Departments of the Community, and has thus made impossible our further collaboration. We shall continue to oppose this in the most determined manner”. The Zionist representatives then walked out of the meeting.