Terming the resolution for a commission to rescue the Jews of Europe ” inadequate,” Dr. Stephen S. Wise today called for an amendment to keep open the doors of Palestine as the “simplest way of helping the Jews of Europe.” Dr. Wise told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he was not discussing the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth, but that the failure to mention Palestine as a haven meant that the resolution did not “touch the heart of the problem.”
He charged that the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe has been using newspaper advertisements to misrepresent the bill as a proposal to open Palestine to immigration. “I know of no divergences among Jews with respect to this resolution,” he testified. He added that Jewish groups have been working together for several years on the problem of rescuing their co-religionists.
Asked by Rep. Charles A. Eaton, New Jersey, Rep., about the “propriety of a committee of the House serving notice on the British Parliament as to what action they should take,” Dr. Wise said that “morally and spiritually” the United States shared Britain’s mandate over Palestine. “We can suggest that the doors of Palestine be kept open because we are friends,” he said.
COMMITTEE HEARS TESTIMONY ON STATE DEPARTMENT EFFORTS TO AID JEWS
Rep. James W. Wadsworth, New York Rep., disclosed that the Foreign Affairs Committee last week heard four hours of testimony on the efforts of the State Department and the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees to help European Jews.
Rep. Will Rogers, Jr., California, Dem., who with Rep. Joseph Clark Baldwin, New York Rep., introduced the resolution in the House, called the support of the American Jewish Conference “one of the most hopeful things that has happened,” but said he doubted the “wisdom of injecting the ancient and acrimonious issue of Palestine into a specific resolution designed for rescue.” Senator Edwin C. Johnson, Colorado Dem., read a telegram from Isaac Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, expressing his hope of success in the effort to rescue “the remnant of Israel given over to cruel torment and death in the clutches of the Nazi fiends in human guise.”
Lewis G. Hines of the American Federation of Labor and Kermit Eby, personal representative of Phillip Murray, president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, asked favorable consideration of the resolution. Further hearings will be held next week.
According to Senator Guy M. Gillette, Iowa Dem., who introduced a similar bill in the Senate, the Foreign Relations Committee there will not hold public hearings. He said he expected the Committee to consider the resolution at its next meeting.
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.
