Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Alliance Israelite Pledges to Continue Educational, Economic Work in Palestine

December 22, 1930
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Vigorous expressions against the present English policy in Palestine, and against the “barbaric” anti-Semitism of the Hitlerites in Germany were among the resolutions taken at the annual meeting of the Central Committee of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, according to reports made public today in Paix et Droit, the official journal of the Alliance.

The Central Committee of the society, whose work is educational and charitable, was so disturbed by the Great Britain’s White Paper on Palestine that it felt called upon to express itself outside the usual boundaries of its activities.

NOT INSENSIBLE TO WHITE PAPER

“Although the Alliance has always taken care to remain outside of all discussions and conflicts raised by the Zionist movement, we cannot remain insensible to this measure taken in regard to a movement that has raised so much idealistic aspiration and comforting hope in the hearts of our co-religionists. . . . The new policy which inspires this brusque declaration is not in the tradition of Great Britain, whose political actions generally conform to a long continuity of principles. This paper interrupts an experiment that has not yet had time to show results. It comes too soon or too late.”

Leaving the reply to the White Paper to Zionist chiefs, the Alliance pledges itself to “continue, for our part, the development of institutions of learning, professional and educational, which we founded nearly fifty years ago for the moral and economic regeneration of the Jewish population of Palestine.”

HITLERISM RETURN TO BARBARISM

In regard to the Hitlerite movement in Germany, the committee said, “All Jewry shudders at this return to spoliation and barbarism; but we have confidence in the wisdom of the German government, and feel that it will maintain order, and safeguard the constitutional rights of all its citizens.”

Mention is made of the miserable condition of the two million Jews of Ukrainia. “A considerable sum” was sent by the Alliance to help alleviate conditions there.

The committee speaks in glowing terms of the persistence of the Jews of Poland in keeping alive Jewish learning and culture. As soon as there is a lull in the political situation, “the workers go back to their task, founding institutions for the study of theology, philosophy, and Jewish sciences in general.” Report is made of aid given to such societies in Vilna and Warsaw.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement