The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

attending the meeting. Chaim Weizmann believed that under such circumstances his
presence would have been a “waste of time.” He advised Rabbi Stephan Wise that the
“scope of the Conference was so narrowed down that it would have been out of place for
me to swell the numbers of the Jewish representatives already filling the corridors” of the
Hotel Royal. In addition, other prominent international Jewish leaders stayed away from
the Conference. 5
The Pro-Palestinian Federation of American in a vain attempt wired Myron C.
Taylor imploring him to influence the British to allow an “open-door” policy of Jewish
immigration into Palestine as “clearly stipulated” in the Mandate awarded the United
Kingdom. Signatories of the cable included the president of the organization, Rev.
Charles Edward Russell, President of the AFL William Green, President of City College
Frederick B. Robinson, New York Senator Robert F. Wagner and John Haynes Holmes
of the Community Church of New York City. 6
On the other hand there were voices opposed to any role of Palestine as a
sanctuary for Jewish refugees. The British Delegate to the League of Nations’ Mandate
Commission testified that British policy “was, and must be, wholly unaffected by the
5 Mor, Eretz Israel, 183. See also Weizmann to Jacobus Kann, July 3, 1938, no. 357, 409 in Weizmann,
Letters, xviii cited in Vital, A People Apart, 890; Chaim Weizmann and Barnet Mitvinoff, The Letters and
Papers of Chaim Weizmann: December 1931-April 1952, series B, vol. 2 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1984), 314; The Jewish leaders who decided not to attend the Evian Conference included
the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, the Grand Rabbin of France, Stephen Wise of the American Jewish
Congress, Cyrus Adler of the American Jewish Committee, members of the Board of Deputies of British
Jews, and prominent individuals such as Einstein, Louis Brandeis and the Baron de Rothschild
6 “Palestine Open Door Urged,” New York Times, July 11, 1938, 7. Reverend Charles Edward Russell
founded the Pro-Palestine Federation of America in Chicago in January 1930 as a means of promoting
cordial Christian-Jewish relations and combating prejudice and included many leading Christian
theologians.
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