Article Regarding Agudath Israel of America 1944 Convention, entitled "Confusion Plus"

July 7 1944

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Confusion Plus

Here are some sidelights on the convention of the ultra-Orthodox anti -Zionist Agudath Israel Organization recently held in Ferndale, N. J.

Jacob Rosenheim, world leader of the organization, declaring that he would not like to see the kind of Jewish state in Palestine that "Irreligious" Jewish leader-ship would establish, said that be would agree to obtaining Jewish autonomy in an Arab state and that the solution proposed by Dr. J. L. Magnus was satisfactory to him. He delivered his speech in German and it took some time for its purport to seep into the non-German-understanding delegates. When it did, there was an uproar.

Rabbi Eliezer Silver, president of the American Agudath Israel, said that religious Jews cannot ever give up their traditional position in favor of a Jewish Palestine as promised by the Lord. Jacob Rosenheim then explained that he had merely been stating his "private opinion.'

The convention was also aroused over the fact that an Agudath Israel youth group in Palestine settled on Jewish National Fund land. The Fund was described as allegedly another instrument of the irreligious . . .

The Agudath Israel is now conducting a drive for a colony to be established in Palestine in the name of the late Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, Chief Rabbi of Vilna. The land on which this colony is to be established is, however, not "redeemed" land. It has not been bought from Arabs. The former owner, too, was a Jew.

The Jewish National Fund principle is to acquire for the Jewish people, through purchase, land that is not at the moment of purchase Jewish property.