More than 1,000 delegates representing about 300 Jewish laber organizations gathered at the Central Piaza yesterday to organize a permanent body to fight Fascism, Nazism and anti-Semitism, and to study problems of labor.
A provisional committee has been working for about a year to get the federated body under way. Its title is to be the Labor Committee for Jewish Affairs.
Speakers echoed the need for such an organization and joined in condemning Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Bernard S. Deutsch, president of the American Jewish Congress, for “Failing to represent the masses of Jewish workers.”
The organization will seek to espouse the cause of Jewish workers here and abroad and generally establish a working program for the “reconstruction of Jewish life on the basis of the workers’ philosophy.” Socialist principles will dominate the Committee’s program almost to the exclusion of all else. It was pointed out at the meeting. Communism is frowned upon along with capitalistic governments. The committee will support the American Federation of Labor in its boycott of German-made products and take steps to militate against the spread of fascist and Nazi propaganda in the United States.
B. C. Vladeck, president of the Committee, delivered a scathing verbal attack on “certain groups of Jews is the Uited States which appoint themselves as representatives of the masses.” He said that two-thirds of the Jewish population in this country is made up of working classes. He insisted that they have not been “given a hearing.”
RENOUNCES WISE, DEUTSCH
Joseph Baskin, national secretary of the Workmen’s Circle, represented by the largest number of delegates, said:
“We do not want the Bernard Deutsches and Wises to speak for the workers of the United States. We don’t want any alliance with them. We want an organization that will speak for the workers and world Jewry as Socialists and workers.”
The speaker denounced the Communist party and said that all hitherto existing ties beteen the rival parties were “wiped out at the Madison Square Garden meeting.”
Other speakers included Dr. Chairm Zhitlowsky, H. Erenreich, of Poale Zion: David Pinsky, writer; Morris Feinstone, of the United Hebrew Trades; Jacob Panken, former judge; N. Chanin, secretary of the Jewish Socialists Verband, and louis Waldman, former Socialist candidate for mayor.
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.
