American Council for Judaism Asks U.N. to Protect Jews Against “jewish Nationalism”

The American Council for Judaism today requested the United Nations, in deciding Palestine’s future, to protect Jews of the world against Jewish nationalism and its invasion of their status “as free and equal citizens of the lands of their birth or adoption.” This will be achieved, the Council maintained, only if the U.N. insures “a clear and complete severance between the political structure developed in Palestine and the national rights, obligations, responsibilities and relationship of the citizens of many countries who are Jews by religion.”

In a memorandum signed by Lessing J. Rosenwald, president, the Council warned that unless such specific safeguards against Jewish nationalism are provided, “millions of Jews will suffer irreparable harm by virtue of a confused status as to their exclusive national relationship to the various countries of which they are, and desire to remain, citizens.” The failure to institute and maintain precise safeguards, the Council contended, “has created a duality of relationships that already has done severe hurt to Jews the world over and has made more difficult the normal task of integration of all people in the lands in which they are citizens.”

It also asserted that proposals to establish a Jewish State are a “threat to the peace and security of Palestine and its surrounding area”and “harmful to the Jews in Palestine and to Jews elsewhere throughout the world,” and opposed the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine or anywhere else. The Council requested the Palestine inquiry committee to determine at the outset the authority of the Jewish Agency to speak for all Jews of the world.

The memorandum declared that the Belfour Declaration supported the concept of quality of national interests and loyalty of Jews by references to a “national home” in relation to “the Jewish people.” It Contended that the very establishment of a Jewish Agency for Palestine, described by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine as “a state within a state,” is an extension of the imposition of a duality of national relationships, and said the Agency fosters the “pernicious idea that it is an authorized body in behalf of the Jews of the world.”