Jews throughout the world will tonight usher in the New Year–5708–at services in thousands of synagogues and temples on the six continents in the hope that the two major problems facing Jewry will be solved in the course of the coming year.
With the opening of the forthcoming session of the United Nations General Assembly, coinciding with the Rosh Hashanah holiday, special prayers will be offered (##) a successful solution of the Palestine issue. In the minds of all Jews praying his holiday, the third since the liberation of the world from Nazism, will be the (##)pe that the DP’s will finally find a home and lose the title of “displaced person” before another New Year dawns.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, this afternoon broadcast a message of hope from American Jewry to the displaced Jews of Europe. Using the short-wave facilities of the Worldwide Broadcasting Foundation, Dr. Morgenthau assured the DP’s that the Jews of America “stand ready to make every sacrifice possible to bring to realization the decisions of the United Nations that will remove you forever from the ranks of the homeless and destitute.”
Reporting to the DP’s that the Jews of America will mark the holiday period is “Ten Days of Remembrance” during which special efforts will be made to carry the D.J.A. $170,000,000 goal over the top, he said that while the “conscience of the world may be deaf to your pleas” the Jews of the United States have never forgotten their 6,000,000 fellow Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis or the handful who survived the holocaust.
SECRETARY OF STATE MARSHALL ISSUES ROSH HASHANAH MESSAGE
In a Rosh Hashanah message issued at the State Department, Secretary, of State George C. Marshall said: “I extend my cordial greetings to my countrymen of the Jewish faith on the occasion of the commencement of the Jewish New Year.
“I am confident in the hope that you will unitedly support the efforts of this country and of other peace-loving nations and peoples to build a peaceful world based on the principles for which we fought during the war and which are now embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.”
Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, president of the American Jewish Committee, in his New Year’s message, asserted that “this Rosh Hashanah finds us still in the throes of sorrow, of bitterness and of discord in the world. It is for us as Jews to weather this storm with the characteristic fortitude and the indomitable persistence of our people. To do that we must maintain the strength which comes only from a sense of inward security, and we must gain that sense always from a realization of the true meaning of our Jewishness and a comprehension of the justifiable pride in our historic contributions to the religion and culture of the world,” he stated. “We must strive for unity within the areas of our agreements, not a unity which endeavors of coercive organization to compel all men to act alike and think alike,” he added.
DR. WISE URGES U.N. TO ASSURE JEWISH STATE IN PALESTINE
Terming the British Mandate in Palestine ended and done beyond hope of repair or restoration, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American and World Jewish Congress, in a Rosh Hashanah message called on the United Nations to come to a decision and “a decision must assure the Jewish state of Palestine, Israel reborn as a Nation in its own land.”
In a New Year’s message to the Jewish community of America, cabled from London where he is now conferring with world Zionist leaders, Dr. Emanuel Neumann, president of the Zionist Organization of America, issued a call for “continued and unrelenting (##)gilance in safeguarding the rights of the Jewish people in Eretz Israel.” He urged the Jews of the U.S. to call upon the American Government, which he characterized as holding the key to the just settlement of the Palestine problem,” to assume the leadership in carrying through a solution before the United Nations “in conformity with U.S. policy and declaration laid down time and again in Congressional resolutions and presidential pronouncements.”
On the occasion of the High Holy Days, Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, expressed the fervent hope that the year to come will be a year of peace and that the United Nations will contribute towards that peace by a wise decision on the troubled question in Palestine. “We pray that before this world tribunal the appeal of humanity overcome the harsh voices of political propaganda,” his message read.
In a New Year’s greeting on behalf of the American ORT Federation released today by George Backer, president, and M. Maldwin Fertig, chairman of its Council of Organizations, extending their best wishes for a happier year, they urged American Jewry to meet the great responsibility of helping to solve the acute problems which the Jews face abroad. Speaking of the present crisis and of the needs of the remaining Jews in Europe, the ORT leaders stressed the urgency of furnishing them with skilled trades, so that they can resume normal life and become economically selfsustaining.
JUDGE ROTHENBERG LAUDS SACRIFICES OF PALESTINE JEWS
Calling upon the Jewish people for faith in the justice and ultimate triumph of the Zionist cause, Judge Morris Rothenberg, president of the Jewish National Fund of America, in a New Year’s message sent to more than 1,200 communities throughout the country, lauded the heroism and the gallantry of Jewish Palestine in braving every danger to save Jewish survivors.
In a Rosh Hashanah greeting sent to 900 chapters and groups in 47 states, Hadassah announced the largest membership gain in its history, a total of 200,000, and launched an intensive drive to secure a quarter million constituents in its senior and junior sections by next year.
One hundred and fifty survivors of Nazism who recently arrived in the United States will observe the Jewish High Holidays for the first time on American soil at special New Year services at the reception center of United Service for Now Americans. A New Year’s statement issued by Mrs. Irving M. Engel, chairman of the board of USNA, and Edwin Rosenberg, president, said. Participation in the High Holidays by refugees who have settled throughout the country, “illustrates the meaning of the American tradition of asylum to the oppressed, just as the observance of the Jewish holiday itself symbolizes the spirit of American religious freedom.”
RABBIS WILL ASK CONGREGATION MEMBERS TO AID MIZRACHI IN SERMONS
Several hundred synagogues affiliated with the Rabbinical Council of America, leading Orthodox rabbinical body of this country, will join in the Mizrachi Organization of America’s nationwide drive to enlist 50,000 new members, Rabbi Israel E. {SPAN}(##){/SPAN}riedman, national membership director, announced today. Hundreds of Orthodox spiritual leaders throughout the country will devote High Holiday sermons to urging their congregants to enlist in the religious-Zionist movement, he reported.
The Synagogue Council of America, representing Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism, sent greetings to the Jews of the nation and of the world as well as to persons of other faiths on the occasion of the observance of the New Year. Asserting that “peace has been the historic mission of Israel to the world,” the message added that peace is the prior task to which we must all dedicate our lives.
Dr. Maurice N. Eisendrath, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, in a Rosh Hashanah message reviewed the tragic life of hundreds of thousands of Jews in DP camps, on the high seas and precariously en route to Palestine, and urged American Jewry, “living in the most divinely blessed of all lands,” to give their utmost support, “spiritual, moral and financial,” to their stricken brethren, and to all constructive forces in our country, in order to “dissipate the deepening bitterness between classes and creeds, between capital and labor, between Gentile and Jew, white and Negro.”
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the Rabbinical Council of America in a holiday statement urged every Jew to re-dedicate himself at the High Holy Days to “the high purpose of our people–the sanctification of mankind.”
The heads of America’s two powerful Labor organizations and the Labor Department have issued messages of sympathy and pledges of support to the Jewish people of the U.S. and other countries, on the occasion of the holidays. The message from Philip Murray, president of the C.I.O., William Green, head of the A.F.L., and Labor Secretary Lewis B. Schwellenbach, were sent through the Jewish Labor Committee.
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.
