At least 67,000 people participated in the demonstration for a Jewish Palestine at Madison Square Garden last night, arranged by the American Zionist Emergency Council, police estimated today. About 22,000 crowded into the auditorium, while approximately 45,000 filled the streets outside, listening to the proceedings through loudspeakers.
The Garden filled up so fast that the Fire Department ordered the doors closed a half-hour before the meeting was scheduled to begin. The auditorium was hung with American and Zionist flags and banners reading: “Is Attlee Another Chamber lain?” “When Will the War Be Over for the Jewish People?”, Aren’t Six Million Jewish Dead Enough?” and “America Is For Palestine. Why Doesn’t the State Department Act?”
Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, told the audience that his interview with President Truman on Saturday occurred in a cordial, pleasant atmosphere. He expressed the hope that the President would “not be misled by a few high-placed, shell-shocked Jews who reach you from time to time and attempt to confuse you on this basic problem and its sound solution. They speak for an insignificant number of our people, those who are afraid lest the establishment of a Jewish State will endanger their own comfortable existence here.” Dr. Silver called on all American Jews for a total mobilization “in the war which has been called against us.” As he finished, the entire auditorium-arose and spontaneously chanted the Hatikvah.
Gov. Thomas E. Dewey pointed to the sufferings of the Jews now confined to camps in Europe, to the magnificent achievements of the Jews in Palestine, and to their contributions to the war effort, and declared that they were entitled to a homeland. He called for the immediate redemption of the pledges made to the Jews and urged the immediate establishment of free immigration. The Governor, however, refrained from demanding the creation of a Jewish state or commonwealth.
Justice for the Jews, Dr. Stephen S. Wise said, did not mean more certificates of admission to Palestine, but the admission of Palestine to the United Nations as a Jewish State. He said that he doubted that Prime Minister Attlee wanted to go down in history as “another Ramsay MacDonald.” He predicted that he will live to see the establishment of a Jewish State and added that after his interview with the President on Saturday, in the company of Dr. Silver, he was not “without hope.”
Other speakers included Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Hayim Greenberg, Dr. Israel Goldstein, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein, Mrs. Moses Epstein, and Dr. Daniel Poling. Henry Monsky presided.
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.
