German Jewry’s position will be stabilized shortly in one way or another, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, former president of the World Zionist Organization, and head of the Zionist commission for settling German-Jewish refugees in Palestine, declared yesterday in an address delivered before the conference of the British Zionist Federation, now in session here. “Even hell has limits,” Dr. Weizmann said, pointing out that even in Russia, the position of the Jews has been stabilized.
“Within five or six years, German Jewry will be reduced to half its present number, and will perhaps be digestible among sixty millions of Germans,” Dr. Weizmann declared.
“One-third of the total Chalutz (pioneer) immigration into Palestine is from Germany,” the veteran Zionist leader pointed out. “Also more than one thousand tourists and capitalists enter Palestine from Germany each month. Assuming an annual emigration of twenty thousand German Jews, half will go to Palestine. The income to be expected for Palestine from various sources will be about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds annually and this will enable the absorption of six thousand German refugees each year.
“Should our campaign for two million pounds for the settlement of German-Jewish refugees prove successful, half going to Palestine and half to the rest of the world, Palestine will receive a million pounds in the next three years. And I can definitely prove that Palestine is capable of absorbing thirty-five thousand immigrants in the next three years.
“France cannot absorb twenty-five thousand refugees, but Palestine is absorbing thousands without needing or asking for relief,” Dr. Weizmann concluded.
Harry Sacher, British Zionist leader and a member of the allocations committee, urged attending delegates not to treat the German Jewish problem in a way that will encourage the German Jews to become unnecessarily dependent on external help. “We must not encourage imitators of Hitler elsewhere to believe that world Jewry will shoulder any burdens they impose on us. We must assume no long term obligations toward the German Jews”, he said.
“The German question must be settled in the shortest time possible. We must have our hands free in case another emergency should arise.
“The declining birth rate among German Jews and the constant flow of immigration from Germany will reduce German Jewry, within a few years, to about two hundred and fifty thousand. Then the situation will probably be stabilized.”
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.
