A declaration of principles outlining its policy on the position of European Jewry and Palestine after the war was issued here today by the executive board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in connection with the forthcoming American Jewish Conference.
Expressing the hope that the American Jewish Conference will attain unity on problems concerning Palestine and the post-war rights of the Jews in Europe, the declaration reaffirms “positive sympathy with the eagerness to cooperate in the upbuilding of Palestine as stated in the resolution adopted at the Union’s 35th biennial council in New Orleans in 1937.” In this resolution the UAHC urged American Jews,” irrespective of ideological differences,” to unite in the activities leading to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It also urged its constituencies” to give financial and moral support to the work of rebuilding Palestine.”
“Since the adoption of this resolution,” the declaration of principles reads, “the situation of world Jewry has tragically deteriorated, and the part that Palestine must now play has become correspondingly more significant.”
CIVIC EQUALITY, REHABILITATION, RESETTLEMENT DEMANDED FOR EUROPEAN JEWS
With regard to the Jewish position in a liberated Europe, the Declaration of Principles advances the following program to the American Jewish Conference:
1. No peace to follow this war can be just or enduring unless, as for all other men, it provides for Jews complete civic equality, guarantee of the right of worship, and full parity of economic opportunity.
2. In view of the especially tragic condition of the Jews in Europe, exceptional measures need to be taken by a Commission of such a concert of nations as shall be established after the war, to rehabilitate and to restore the Jews of Europe to a full share in European life.
3. Even with this, great masses of Jews in Europe will be in such a deplorable condition after the war that their plight can be alleviated only be resettlement. A world in which persecution and slaughter of large masses of Jews have been possible, owes those remaining alive the right to find a place where they can live in peace. This task will be of such magnitude that it will be capable of solution only by the united effort and with the united aid of the nations of the world.
WANTS PALESTINE UNDER STEWARDSHIP OF “CONCERT OF NATIONS”
The UAHC executive board urges also that the American Jewish Conference attain agreement on the following objectives:
1. Provision shall be made for large scale immigration into Palestine regulated, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Palestine, by such a concert of nations as shall be established after the war.
2. Palestine shall remain under the stewardship of this concert of nations until it shall become possible to establish self-government without jeopardizing the rights or status of any group in Palestine.
3. Such a government shall be democratic and non-sectarian, modeled upon the governments of the democratic nations. There shall be complete separation of Church and State. The inviolability of the holy places of the various religions shall be guaranteed.
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.
