continue uncompromised and also for the dignity and rights of the labor union,” he stated.
The Laborites recognize the rights of private enterprise, the need for tolerance toward religion and the problem of living in friendliness with Arab neighbors, the speaker declared.
He quoted from a conference of the Histadruth, Jewish labor federation in Palestine, when the Laborites formulated a positive attitude toward private enterprise based on Jewish labor and upon proper labor conditions, and at the same time imposing an obligation on the Jewish workers to refrain from demands which are liable to destroy private enterprise.
Discussing religion, Ben-Gurion declared that respect and toleration of personal convictions and conscience must be observed.
ARABS ARE THERE TO STAY
The Arab problem, the spokesman for the dominant group at the Congress declared, is not one only of the Arabs in Palestine, “but it includes the fifteen or sixteen million Arabs inhabiting the entire Mediterranean area. A sincere method for dealing with the Arabs must be evolved,” he stated. “We must realize that the Arabs are not temporary Palestine inhabitants but that they are there to stay as our neighbors.”
He pointed out that the only solution to the “problem of strengthening the Yishuv” is with increased immigration despite all difficulties.
The general debate in the Congress today lacked much color and fire because Jabotinsky, one of the best orators in Zionist ranks, whose pronounced views on Zionist questions always bring a barrage of attack and denunciation, did not participate.
The Congress presidium this afternoon invited representatives of the various factions to register for the debate but although Jabotinsky was present when Leo Motzkin, president of the Congress, made the announcement, he did not register. Instead the eneregtic Revisionist leader invited representatives of the press to a conference this evening at which he was to expound the Revisionist attitude on all questions.
THE SPEAKERS
Dr. Ignacy Schwartzbart, of West Galicia, who presided at the preliminary conference of the General Zionists; Rabbi Meir Berlin, president of the World Mizrachi (orthodox Zionists); Meer Grossman, leader of the Democratic Revisionists, and Deputy Isaac Gruenbaum, Radical Zionist, spoke.
Rabbi Berlin sharply criticized and accused Labor of closing Palestine immigration to all but Laborites and demanded a stronger attitude in Zionist politics toward the Mandatory Power and more religious activities by the Palestine Excutive.
Before the opening of general debate, three important resolutions dealing with the work of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), the land acquistion agency, were adopted by the Congress. They were introduced by Menachim M. Ussishkin, president of the fund, in the course of his report on the activities of his organization.
The first resolution provided that one-third of all funds collected for the settlement of German Jews in Palestine be given to the Keren Kayemeth; that all funds in the possession of Jewish communities or Jewish organizations throughout the world, including endowment funds, should be deposited with the Keren Kayemeth, which undertakes to guarantee not only the loan, but also interest on the loan, and thirdly, that a national lottery should be launched, the income of which should go to the upbuilding of Palestine work and one-third of it, through the Keren Kayemeth, for the purchase of additional land.
Jewish organizations and individuals during the last twenty months acquired 44,000 dunams of land in Palestine. This was done entirely without Government aid, Ussishkin declared. He complained that for the last fifteen years not a single acre of Government owned state land had been obtained for Jewish purposes. Furthermore, he declared, the Government had made great difficulties for the Jews in acquiring even privately owned land.
THE FRENCH REPORT
He expressed pessimism over the French Report on the development of Palestine and over the proposed ten million-dollar Palestine loan, which he declared would be a burden on Palestine Jews and benefit only the Arabs.
While the income of the fund increased last year, he reported, land prices also rose, but in excess of the proportionate income rise, thus reducing the fund’s land-buying activities by fifty percent. He revealed that although the income of the Keren Kayemeth had increased, the contribution of the United States to it had dropped by forty percent.
THE ADOPTED RESOLUTION
The Congress last night decisively rejected a strongly-worded resolution calling for a world-wide fight against Hitlerism and endorsement of the world-wide anti-Nazi boycott movement and adopted unanimously, with the Revisionists (extreme rightwing Zionists) abstaming from voting, the declaration prepared for the congress by a special committee which wrestled with its task for an entire week.
The resolution adopted by the congress pledges that the Zionist movement” will not remain silent until the deprival of rights and the indignity to German Jews comes to an end.” It raises the voice of the congress in “solemn protest against the terrible injustice done to German Jews and the systematic policy of deprival of social and economic citizenship rights and the defamation of social and human rights and interference with religious rights through schechita (ritual slaughter) prohibition.”
The resolution appeals to the League of Nations, the Palestine Mandatory power, Great Britain, and the other nations of the world to come to the aid of the Jewish people and to facilitate the creation of a Jewish National home.
It appeals to the Jews of the world to see in the German catastrophe the proof of the claims of Zionism as a solution of the Jewish problem.
The boycott resolution had been introduced by Jabotinsky after he had unsuccessfully sought to get his pronounced views on the German situation included in the declaration prepared by the committee.
The committee’s draft had been approved by every faction in the congress except the Revisionists.
The Jabotinsky resolution was rejected by a vote of 240 to 48.
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.
