Dr. Nahum Sokolow, president of the Zionist World Organization and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, who is now in South Africa on behalf of the Keren Hayesod, gave important evidence in the action at Grahamstown before the Judge-President, Sir Thomas Graham, and Justice Gutche, brought by Rev. A. Levy of the Western Road Synagogue, Port Elizabeth, against three leaders of the Anti-Semitic Nazi Grey-shirt Organization, Johannes von Moltke, Harry Victor Inch, and David Hermanus Olivier, for damages for alleged defamation, arising out of the publication of a document said to have been stolen from the synagogue of which he is minister, which is alleged to show the existence of a Jewish world plot.
He was the president of the Zionist Organization, Dr. Sokolow told the court, and was a journalist by profession. He had edited, among others, the first Hebrew paper; he was a life-long associate of Dr. Herzl, the great Zionist leader, and was largely co-responsible for the declaration of Lord Balfour given in the name of Lord Rothschild. He had also represented Jewry at the League of Nations.
There was absolutely no truth in the suggestion that there was a Jewish plot to overcome the world.
The Zionist Congresses were organized to establish a home for the Jewish people.
Dr. Sokolow said he was present at the First Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897, and he helped to organize it, together with the late Dr. Herzl. He told how he had arranged the agenda, all the proceedings of the Congress being of a public nature. The Congress was attended by people from all parts of the world, including professors from the Basle University, who were non-Jews. A full report of the proceedings was later issued.
EXPLAINS EXPOSURE
He could testify that there was no truth in the allegation that the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were ever promulgated by Dr. Herzl. This slanderous document was never heard of.
He knew Ward Price personally, and it was Ward Price who had exposed the “Protocols” in The Times in 1920. Every word in the “Protocols” was a mischievous lie written to excite the Gentiles against the Jews. It was discovered that the origin of the “Protocols” was a political pamphlet written in the time of Napoleon III. It was a copy. He had seen the original in the British Museum, and in the “Protocols,” instead of the name Napoleon there was substituted the name Herzl, and instead of the Napoleonic people there were the Jews.
Cross-examined by Inch, Dr. Sokolow said he was born in Poland, but he was now a naturalized British subject.
Inch: Why are you here today giving evidence? Are you here to defend world Jewry?
Dr. Sokolow: Not necessarily; I am here to give evidence on the “Protocols.” World Jewry can defend itself. I am here to refute the false and malicious allegations about the Elders of Zion.
In reply to further questions, Dr. Sokolow said that the Jews were of the Caucasian race. They were related to the Arabs. There was a Semitic race, and the Arabs were a branch of that race. He did not know that the film business was controlled by Jewry, said Dr. Sokolow.
SEEKS TO DISCREDIT JEWS
Inch: Do you agree with the posters of half-naked women which are exhibited for our children to look at?
Dr. Sokolow: I am not a great admirer of nakedness.
Inch: Can you give the name of any paper in the world that is not controlled by the Jews or their advertisements?
Dr. Sokolow: I do know that the Times, the greatest paper in the world, is not controlled by the Jews. I know nothing about the South African papers. It is an empty phrase anyway. The Daily Herald is another paper that is not controlled by the Jews.
Inch: Do you consider that the Jews monopolize the white slave traffic?
Both Sir Thomas Graham and Reynolds strongly objected to this question, and Inch replied that he had a quotation from the Jewish Chronicle of April 1, 1910, which practically admitted what his question implied.
Reynolds pointed out that Inch was reading from a printed pamphlet and not from the Jewish Chronicle.
Sir Thomas Graham to Inch: You must produce the paper itself.
Inch: I cannot obtain the 1910 issue.
Sir Thomas Graham: Then you must not make such a serious charge if you cannot substantiate it.
Dr. Nahum Sokolow said that so far from the Jews encouraging the white slave traffic there was a society in London which existed for the purpose of fighting the traffic. The extract to which Inch had referred must have been taken from some speech made at a meeting of that society, and in order to appreciate its real significance one would have to read the whole report. He suggested that Inch write to the British Museum for the full text.
ANSWERS INCH’S QUERIES
Inch: Why have the Jews been persecuted throughout the world?
Dr. Sokolow: Ask the persecutors, not the persecuted.
In answer to further questions, Dr. Sokolow said that if the Jews had entire control of the press, the films, the gold industry and governments, as was alleged, naturally they would not wish to go to a country of their own, but it was purely a conditional question, it was a question if they had this control then naturally they would wish to stay.
Dr. Sokolow denied that Zionism was a failure in South Africa.
Von Moltke: Is it true that the British Board of Deputies is described as the super British Parliament?
Dr. Sokolow: Some American journalist might have described it so.
Von Moltke: Did you and your colleagues not level a pistol at the head of the British government when you came forward with your Zionist proposals?
Dr. Sokolow: Are you speaking in an allegorical way?
Von Moltke: I am speaking in the best English I can muster.
In answer to further questions, Dr. Sokolow said that the British government did not rely on the financial support of the Rothschilds. He complained frequently that Von Moltke relied on extracts torn from their context which did not reveal the true state of affairs.
“You exaggerate the importance of the Jews,” he said. “Do you seriously think that we could blackmail British politicians and frighten the British government? The whole thing is childish.”
CITES FORD’S RETRACTION
When one of the defendants mentioned the attacks of Henry Ford on the Jews, Dr. Sokolow drew attention to Ford’s retraction. As a matter of fact, Ford had attended a dinner given in the Hotel Commodore by the Jewish community in New York in honor of Ford. “I met Mr. Ford at that banquet,” went on Dr. Sokolow. “Mr. Ford at that banquet expressed extreme regret at his anti-Semitic activities.”
Mention was then made of Francois Coty, the millionaire Perfume king, who was alleged to have made statements against the Jews; but Counsel for Rev. Levy objected to this and declared that Coty had retracted his statements, just as Henry Ford had done.
In answer to von Moltke, Dr. Sokolow admitted that Pope Gregory IX had been instrumental in having the contents of the Talmud examined in solemn assembly in France, and the Talmud had been burnt. But so had the Jews been burnt, he added, and he could explain as little why the Talmud had been burnt as why the Jews had been burnt.
A sensation was caused when von Moltke, on reading to the Court an alleged quotation from Dr. Sokolow’s “History of Zionism,” was told by Dr. Sokolow that the quotation was misleading. The reference was made not to Jewish satisfaction with the Bolshevik revolution, but with the previous Kerensky revolution.
The Judges repeatedly interposed and warned defendants of the danger of quoting unverified authorities.
Dr. Sokolow, in reply to Olivier, said that anybody could buy a German Talmud translation through a reputable Berlin bookseller.
REV. LEVY’S CHARGES
Rev. Levy in his declaration said he was not a Rabbi, but was widely referred to and known as the Rabbi of the Congregation. The defendant was a leader for the Eastern Province of a society called the South African Gentile National Socialist movement, and from time to time held meetings in support of the movement. On or about April 4 at a public meeting in the Feather Market Hall at Port Elizabeth, attended by over 500 persons, the defendant, it was alleged, wrongfully and maliciously published false and defamatory words by reading out to the meeting a document falsely alleged to have been obtained by means of theft from the Western Road Synagogue.
It was further alleged that on or about March 27 at a large public meeting at Aberdeen the defendant maliciously published the same defamatory words.
A COUPLE OF CHARGES
By these words the defendant meant and was understood to mean that the Jewish citizens of Port Elizabeth, as of the rest of the world, were entirely antagonistic to the Christian religion and determined on destroying it, and were guilty of blasphemy in referring to the Christian religion and to the founder and the mother of the founder of the Christian religion; that at a forthcoming meeting of the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement it was alleged that certain Jews were to go armed in order to create a disturbance and even to commit murder, homicide, manslaughter and the destruction of property; that the members of the Jewish faith intended to subvert the existing system of civilization and substitute the Japanese system, and to destroy the British Empire and hand back South Africa to the natives, so that those of the Jewish faith would be no longer in any danger from natives who were all destitute of any good qualities as were the Dutch people of South Africa; and that the members of the Jewish faith were financing certain portions of the press for the purpose of disseminating false and atrocious news that the members of the Jewish faith should keep silent in regard to the foregoing designs and await propaganda from Moscow to help in the subversive activities already alluded to, and that this propaganda would be sent to and distributed by the Western Road Synagogue.
The defendant, in his plea, said that the plaintiff was not widely known or referred to as a rabbi in Port Elizabeth or elsewhere. He said that the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement was not a society, but a political movement and organization with the ostensible purpose of combatting Jewish perversive influence in economics, culture, religion, ethics and statecraft and to re-establish European Aryan control in South Africa for the welfare of the Christian peoples of South Africa.
NOT MALICIOUSLY
The defendant admitted that he published the words complained of, but said that he did not do so wrongfully, unlawfully or maliciously. He further said that the words were not meant and could not have been understood to refer to the plaintiff, but were directed against the Jewish race.
He also said that the document was stolen out of the Western Road Synagogue, Port Elizabeth. He denied that the words complained of were capable of bearing the meanings and innuendoes placed on them and said that in any case they did not refer to the plaintiff, but to the Jewish race.
The alternative plea was that
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