World Jewish Congress Body Hears Plea for Neutrality in Anglo-slav Political Conflict

Dr. Rafaele Cantoni, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Italy and Italian delegate to the European Consultative Council of the World Jewish Congress, called on world Jewry to maintain complete neutrality in the conflict between the Anglo-American and Slavic blocs, at the second session of the Council. “We are a world people and our welfare depends on ‘One World’ and not on a world divided in two,” he declared.

Samuel Margoshes, American delegate, said he hoped it would be possible for the Congress to collaborate with the Jewish Communists, while Dr. Noah Barou, British delegate, called on Russia to appreciate the position of the Jews. Dr. Simon Federoush, of the World Jewish Congress headquarters in New York, referring to a speech by Lady Reading at the opening session of the Council meeting in which she assured the Jews that Britain was still their best friend, pointed to the recent killing of visaless immigrants on the blockade runner Knesseth Israel at Haifa.

Joseph Rosenzaft, head of the Committee of Liberated Jews in the British zone of Germany, attacked the rehabilitation of “German murderers” while the plight of their victims was neglected. Dr. Leon Kubowitzki, general secretary of the World Jewish Congress, reviewed the Congress’ role in presenting the Jewish case at the Nuremberg trial, in helping secure reparations for Jewish relief and rehabilitation of the survivors and in pushing for the inclusion of minority protection clauses in the peace treaties of the defeated Axis satellite nations.