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3,000 Women Stage Protest Parade in Jerusalem; Passive Resistance Mapped

May 23, 1939
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Three thousand Jewish women today paraded through Jerusalem’s streets in protest against Britain’s Palestine policy as Jewish leaders studied a five-point program of non-cooperation with the British administration.

The women, led by the wives of Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, Prof. David Yellin and Isaac Ben-Zvi, marched past the Jewish Agency offices, through the Talbieh quarter to the King David Hotel, where their leaders presented a memorandum protesting the White Paper to William D. Battershill, Government Chief Secretary. A large demonstration was also held at Hadar Hacarmel, near Haifa, which passed without incident.

The non-cooperation program was submitted by the Jewish National Council to the Emergency Committee of Palestine Jewry, to go into effect if the Palestine policy is finally adopted. The emergency committee empowered the council to communicate the plan to Jewish organizations for consideration of means to carry it out. The plan includes:

(1) Preparation of the younger element of the Jewish community for “emergency tasks.” (About 100,000 Jews between the ages of 18 and 35 have registered as willing to answer “any emergency call.”)

(2) Organizing of Jewish national economy for independence from foreign production. (Eighty per cent of Palestine customs — a chief source of the Government’s revenue — is paid by Jews.)

(3) Severance of the Jewish community organizations, Jewish municipalities and local councils from the administration, placing them under the “national authority” of the Palestine Jewish community.

(4) Abolition of the Jerusalem municipal administration, which is based on the domination of the Arabs, comprising a minority of the population, over the majority.

(5) Suspension of tax payments and restriction of the use of fee-requiring Government services.

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