Last minute efforts are being made here to avoid a serious split in the ranks of British Jewry as a result of the decision taken last Sunday by the annual meeting of the Board of Deputies of British Jews to break the 65-year old agreement with the Anglo-Jewish Association which was founded in 1871 to obtain protection for oppressed Jews in Eastern Europe.
Faced with the decision of the Deputies, which was adopted by 154 votes to 148, the council of the Anglo-Jewish Association today appointed a committee to consider the situation and make such recommendations to the council as it deems advisable. The committee consists of Chief Rabbi Hertz, Lord Bearsted, Sir Robert Waley Cohen, Sir Philip Hartog, Neville Laski, Leonard Montefiore, Anthony de Rothschild, Leonard Stein, and others.
Meanwhile, the Jewish Chronicle, leading organ of British Jewry, publishes an editorial today declaring that “under the impact of a Zionist caucus, the Board of Deputies is no longer a free representative body of the Jews of Britain, but a partisan committee meddling in Anglo-Jewish-communal affairs.
“The Board of Deputies,” the article says, “is to all intents and purposes a defunct body. The Zionist caucus captured a corpse.” The paper warns that unless those who triumphed at Sunday’s meeting seek “wise and generous accommodation” with those whom they have defeated, not only the Jews in Britain will suffer, but also the oppressed Jews abroad, and most serious of all the Zionist cause itself.
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.
