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

that was “old, elitist [and] given to private persuasion,” was engaged in a running “feud”
with the more confrontational American Jewish Congress. 44 Chaim Weizmann believed
that behinds the scenes actions, performed “privately and separately” with the various
delegations in their respective capitals, would be more likely to lead to positive results
than an international congress at Evian. The exclusion of Palestine from the agenda
convinced him as well that he would not be granted a “serious hearing,” thus constituting
“’a waste of time.’" 45
To Zionist historians the “appearance of the Jews at the Evian Conference was
that of paupers.” Jews did not come as a “united nation but [as] a homeless group of
lobbyists.” The leadership of the London-based Jewish Agency suggested that the British
Council for German Jews [and possibly other organizations] formulate a joint delegation;
a project dismissed by the Council, in part out of fear of creating in actuality “an
international Jewry.” 46 There was also concern among the assorted Jewish leaderships
that any testimony or evidence presented to the Conference sub-committees would be
“heard [but] would not be seriously listened to.” 47 The American Jewish Congress
reported that the “disintegration and rivalry” between the various Jewish factions
44 Jessie H Stiller, George S. Messersmith, Diplomat of Democracy (Chapel Hill, NC: University of
North Carolina Press, 1987), 123.
45 Vital. A People Apart, 890.
46 Second report of Nahum Goldmann from Evian, CZA, File S25/978 and Rosenblitt’s letter to Ruppin,
CZA, File S7/693, Goldman letter from Evian, CVA, File S25/978 and Rosenblitt’s letter to Ruppin, CZA,
File S7/93 cited in Beit-zvi, Post-Ugandan Zionism, 147-48. The belief that a secret Jewish cabal
controlled governments and the economy was long the mainstay of anti-Semitic beliefs and found, perhaps,
its greatest expression in the infamous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
47 Vital, A People Apart, 894.
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