Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization, took an early opportunity last night to explain the moderate policy the Zionist leadership is pursuing with regard to Great Britain.
Although Mr. Zangwill was not mentioned by name the guests at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Boris Grabelsky, where a dinner to Dr. Weizmann was tendered, all understood the Zionist leader had the noted English Jewish author in mind.
It is possible to demand of Great Britain that she do more to advance the Zionist cause than is at present the case. Dr. weizmann said. Dr. Weizmann hinted that Zionist extremism would yield the Zionists no more than Arab extremism has yielded the Arabs. It was not a question so much of making certain demands but of the chances under the present circumstances of having them met. It is far easier, he said, to make a single dramatic gesture than with patience and restraint to prepare for the forward movement Dr. Weizmann made it clear that the time was not propitious for spectacular play on the part of the Zionists. He was convinced, he said, that it was the present moderate policy which resulted in the clean bill of health for the Zionist movement by the Cabinet Committee which sat in judgment recently over it. This Cabinet Committee, Dr. Weizmann revealed, was driven to the conclusion that the Zionist cause had justice on its side.
Dr. Weizmann indicated that this Committee was in the main-hostile toward the Zionist aims and that it was the loyalty of the Zionists toward Britain that impelled them to render a decision in Zionism’s favor.
Dr. Weizmann made use of an epigram saying it was difficult to be moderate but extremely easy to be extreme.
With regard to the misgivings voiced earlier in the evening by Reuben Brainin, the Hebrew publicist, as to the desirability of coopting prominent non-Zionist Jews into the Agency, Dr. Weizmann declared, “that not an iota of Zionist principle was being bartered away and that the persons who might now be ready to aid the Jewish cause in Palestine had had a change of heart.”
Dr. Arthur Ruppin spoke wittingly of Dr. Weizmann’s enduring youthfulness, energy and activity. He deplored rather that the Zionist leader had lost some of his humor with which he had been accustomed to view the problems and travails of life.
Those at the dinner included, besides Mr. and Mrs. Grabelsky, the hosts, Dr. Tchernowitz (Rav Zair), Professor Richard Gottheil, Reuben Brainin, Rev. Z. H. Masliansky, Herman Conheim, Judge Henry Danenbaum, Louis Lipsky, Morris Rothenberg, Abe Goldberg, Bernard G. Richards, Secretary of the American Jewish Congress, Bernard A. Rosenblatt, William Edlin of the Day, Gedalia Bublick of the Jewish Daily News, Jacob Fishman and Bernard Shelvin of the Jewish Morning Journal, J. Marinoff of the Big Stick, Jacob Bernstein of Dos Yiddishe Folk, Meyer Weisgal of the New Palestine, Jacob Landau and Gershon Agronsky of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Mr. ###ison, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, Sophie Irene Loeb of the World and Miriam Elias of the Moscow Habimah.
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.
