Resolutions calling for intervention by the League of Nations in the Jewish situation in Germany and endorsing the world-wide Jewish anti-Nazi boycott were adopted by the preliminary conference of the world Jewish congress in its closing sessions here today.
The conference voted to call the congress into session in March, 1934, and that the delegates to the congress should be named in democratic elections to be held throughout the world no later than January.
The adoption of the boycott resolution came after opposition to it had been made in the political committee’s deliberations by Rabbi Angelo Sacerdoti, chief rabbi of Rome and a friend of Premier Mussolini. It was strenuously advocated by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York, Dr. Leo Motzkin of Paris, and others. The Italian delegates abstained from voting on it.
The resolutions calling for League of Nations action on the German-Jewish question, demanded that the League take over supervision and regulation of the emigration of Jews from Germany, as it did in the case of the repatriated Greeks; furnish passports for German-Jewish refugees throughout the world who have become “staatenlose” (men without citizenship in any country); together with Great Britain, the mandatory power, do everything possible to open Palestine to thousands of German Jews anxious to make Palestine their home, and to coordinate the work of the various existing committees for relief.
In the interim, until the congress begins functioning, the entire task of defending Jewish rights was delegated by the conference to the Committee of Jewish Delegations, haded by Dr. Motzkin and Dr. Emil Margulies of Czechoslovakia, with nine executive members to be elected by the conference and six representatives from six different countries. The central office of the congress will remain at Geneva but two branches will be established at Paris and Warsaw. The American Jewish Congress will act for the world congress in New York.
A tremendous impression was made on the conference when Rabbi Wise in a speech today referred to the presence in the correspondents’ section of a representative of the Voelkischer Beobachter, Hitler’s own newspaper. Most of the delegates had been unaware of this.
“If I were at Nuremberg at the Nazi conference,” Rabbi Wise declared, “I undoubtedly would have been torn to pieces, but the repre-
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.
