Rescue of Jews, Guarantees of Post-war Jewish Rights Everywhere, Urged by Uahg

Urgent United Nations action to save the Jews in Europe now, guarantees that Jewish rights will be safeguarded in all countries after the war and the opening of Palestine to Jewish immigration, were demanded today in resolutions adopted at the closing session of the 38th biennial council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, meeting at the Hotel New Yorker here. The council also went on record opposing the abrogation of the Cremieux Law by General Giraud, pledging adherance to the American Jewish Assembly and urging its member congregations to intensify their efforts in behalf of the war effort and in maintaining religious life in America.

It was decided that the next council will be held in Toronto, Canada, in 1945 if the nation is no longer at war. Otherwise, the executive board of the UAHC will designate a meeting place. All of the officers, including Robert P. Goldman, president, and Adolph Rosenberg, chairman of the executive board, were reelected. The National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, which also closed its biennial convention here today, reelected Mrs. Hugo Hartman as president.

The resolution on refugee aid urged that havens be found for the refugees in neutral countries; that the United States should admit as many refugees as possible; that room should be found for the European Jews in the British Empire and especially in Palestine, and that the Anglo-American conference on refugees should be held as soon as possible. Copies of the resolution were sent to President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Hull and the British Ambassador Lord Halifax. In the resolution demanding equality for Jews throughout the world after the war, the UAHC urged that “adequate provision also be made for their rehabilitation in new homes and in Palestine. We ask that our Government use its good offices to see that Palestine is opened as quickly as possible to settle as many Jews as desire to go there and who can be taken care of.”

President Roosevelt and the State Department were asked to use their good offices to secure rescindment of the order by General Giraud annuling the Cremieux Law and depriving native Algerian Jews of citizenship, in still another resolution adopted today. Endorsement of the projected American Jewish Assembly by the UAHC contained the proviso that the Union will not consider itself bound by any of the conclusions reached by the Assembly until the executive board of the HAHC has endorsed these proposals.