Jewish Labor Here to Raise $500,000 for Workers in Palestine

Jewish labor in the United States, organized to help Jewish labor in Palestine, answered the British White Paper by quadrupling its Palestine quota in a $500,000 campaign that was launched at the annual convention of the organization, which closed Sunday evening.

Over 800 delegates attended the convention at the Irving Plaza hall on Friday and Sunday, while more than 2,000 sympathizers were present at the Saturday evening meeting at Carnegie Hall.

SPEAKERS ROUSE ENTHUSIASM

David Ben-Gurion, general secretary of the Histadruth, the Jewish labor organization of Palestine, was the principal speaker at several of the convention sessions. Hannah Chizik, one of the leading women workers of Palestine, several times roused the enthusiasm of the delegates, who came from all parts of the United States and Canada to attend the meetings. Joseph Baratz, one of the founders of Digania colony, gave the workers a straight, factual picture of what was going on in the fields in Palestine, told them what help was needed.

Last year the National Labor Committee for the Jewish Workers of Palestine raised $174,845. It was the most they had ever raised.

This year, as speaker after speaker emphasized the necessity of carrying on Jewish labor in spite of all difficulties imposed by Great Britain’s political attitude, the workers became convinced of the necessity of making a tremendous effort. At the Saturday evening mass meeting, a campaign for half a million dollars was launched.

Abraham Cahan, editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, was one of the speakers at the meeting. He told enthusiastically of his contact with the pioneer workers, the Chalutzim, on his visit to Palestine. Abraham Shiplacoff presided at the meeting.

PLEDGE AID TO PALESTINE

While the workmen pledged themselves to carry on their efforts for Palestine, they were not hesitant in denouncing the action of the British Labor government in issuing the White Paper. A resolution was passed reasserting the rights of the Jewish people to establish a homeland in Palestine, and calling upon Great Britain to remove the obstruction to the “establishment of harmonious relations between the Jews and the Arabs” set up by the White Paper.

Mr. Ben-Gurion asserted that Sir John Simpson, who made the Palestine investigation and report on which the White Paper is based, had been very earnest in his enquiry, but that the data furnished to Sir John Simpson by immigration and land officials in Palestine was not always full or correct. He criticized such methods as an “airplane survey” which the investigation used to determine the amount of cultivable land available in the hill country.