A petition signed by every Jew in Palestine will be sent to the British Government and to Parliament urging the appointment of a special parliamentary commission to investigate the details of the Strume disaster. A decision to this effect was adopted here today at a plenary session of the Vaad Leumi, the Jewish National Council of Palestine.
The petition will ask that the commission, when appointed, open an inquiry into the question of whether the Palestine administration was justified in refusing to permit the Strume refugees to enter Palestine under the immigration quota set for Jews. A group of three, representing the major fractions of the Yishuv was appointed by the Vaad Leumi to prepare the text of the petition.
By order of the Vaad Leumi, all Purim festivities and balls were prohibited throughout the country as an expression of mourning for the Strume refugees.
The Hazman, a Hebrew newspaper, today demands a “public inquiry” into the conduct of the Jewish Agency “in order to commit for trial those in the Agency’s bureaucratic machine who are responsible for the death of the children on the Strume.” The paper says that Jewish Agency had ten days at its disposal to transfer the children from the Strume to Palestine, but neglected to do this despite the fact that the Palestine administration agreed to admit all the Strume children under 16 years of age.
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.
