Z.O.A. President Says Montor is “in Rebellion Against the Zionist Movement”

Declaring that “Mr. Montor is once more in rebellion against the Zionist movement,” and that “the reasons are political rather than financial,” Dr. Emanuel Neumann, president of the Zionist Organization of America, to night issued a statement emphasizing that Montor’s letter of resignation “was a most intemperate document” containing many “misleading allegations” which he “could not substantiate and did not attempt to substantiate” at the meetings of the executive of the United Palestine Appeal which considered the contents of his letter.

“Mr. Montor’s difficulties with the Zionist movement date back to 1944 when he resigned as executive director of the American Zionist Emergency Council, a body representing all Zionist groups in the field of public relations,” Dr. Neumann stated. “Mr. Montor had proposed that the Emergency Council should conduct a campaign in favor of Jewish immigration into Palestine, not for a Jewish state. When the Emergency Council under the leadership of Dr. Silver overwhelmingly decided to adopt the Jewish state as the objective, Mr. Montor resigned and his resignation was accepted.

“Since then Mr. Montor has become increasingly hostile and has injected him self with increasing frequency into internal politics, contrary to the prevailing view and the advice of many friends that as the chief fund-raising official he should scrupulously avoid engaging in controversies and playing politics. Repeatedly he has tried to organize opposition groups within the Zionist Organization of America with the purpose of acquiring control for himself and his associates.

“Having failed in these attempts, his latest adventure has been to try to seize control of the United Palestine Appeal on the preposterous pretext that it needed to be reorganized in order to ‘safeguard’ the funds for Israel from the evil influence of the Zionist movement. While the top leadership of American Zionists were intensely preoccupied in recent years with the political struggle for the creation of the Jewish state, Mr. Montor used the opportunity to build up his contacts and a coterie of personal supporters whose ambitions he fanned with the prospect of displacing the organized Zionist groups from their position under the constitution of the UPA, This inordinate ambition for power explains his recent acts,” Dr. Neumann stated.

Declaring that under the “rules and procedures of the World Zionist Movement all funds raised in this country for Palestine are not allocated here but remitted to head offices in Jerusalem to be disbursed in accordance with the budgets of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Palestine,” Dr. Neumann said: “There budgets are determined and adjusted from tine to time by a standing Budget and Finance Commission in Jerusalem, all of whose members are Israelis without a single American Zionist serving on that body.”

J.N.F. PRESIDENT SAYS MONTOR’S RESIGNATION IS “UNWARRANTED”

Judge Norris Rothenberg, president of the Jewish National Fund of America, issued a statement saying that he considers Montor’s letter of resignation “wholly unjustified and unwarranted.” He stressed that “the criticism which Mr. Montor makes of allegedly questionable control of the monies of the United Palestine Appeal is entirely unfounded in fact and does a great injustices to the high purposes which the United Palestine Appeal serves.

“On the purely organizational aide of the United Palestine Appeal there may be room for adjustment so as to allow for a larger representation on its Board of Directors from communities throughout the United States, although in all fairness it must be said that the present Board contains a very substantial representation of important leaders from every section of the country,” he declared.