OmCML ORGlin BRITISH COLUfllBIII J6UIRV
Controlled and Published by Vancouver Jewish Administrative Council
Eleventh Ave. and Oak St.
VOL. in; No. 17.
VANCOUVER, B.C., CANADA, FBIPAY, PEC. 27, 19467
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Bercuson Speech Warns Against Conspiracy
Warning that a "gigantic conspiracy to enmesh the entire world" is tmanifesting itself in the one platform on which men can xmite—that of hatred—was uttered here last week.
Leonard Bercuson, western executive director for the Canadian Zionist Organization, in niali|ing this statement before the annual meeting of the local Zionist Organization, charged that the prime example of this political tactic exists right in Canada.
Speaking of the "insidiuos campaign" undertaken by the Social . Credit Party in Quebec against Canadian Jewry, he said that me-nance is growing up in the east "such as Jews have never seen before."
Pot seven yeats now, he said, the party has fostered hate and intollerance among the illiterate and -unschooled habitant.
The menance is magnified by. the fact that Quebec has 65 of the 2^ seats in the federal houses of I>arliament and therefore wields great power in Canadian politics.
Be urged Canadian Jews to wake up'to the danger and act before this carefully plotted hatred engulfs Jewry.
"All two many so-called Zionists' give $25 to a cause but don't know the score," he charged. "It is time we woke up. Jews'like these are the ones that are allowing Social Credit doctrines of hate to grow deeper and deeper into the Canadian fabric. The results canVbiea^^ ...
"You kiU hear people say 'six million Jews were killed. They shoiild have killed more.' That same man who can say this would chill at seeing a dog beaten on the streets and would strike the 'cruel offender'."
Mr. Bercuson charged that while Hitler was a sincere bigot and the persons who burned Jews at ithe
Current Affairs Forum
At the general meeting of the Current Affairs Forum of Thiu-s" day, December 19th at the Com-mxmity Centre, a Hat-Box discussion was the main feature of the evening. The questions were:
1. What is keeping the Civil War going in China?
2. What are the political implications of the Atom Bomb?
3. What is the cause for the recent wave of strikes?
The Forum had as its guest, Mr. S. Herbst, Wetem Canadian Organizer' of the Industrial Ladies Garment Worker's Union, who, with the. following members, Mrs. Tina Wagner, Mr. A. Gercik, and Mr. Ben Chud, acted as leaders of the discvission. Mr. Bill Simmons was chairman.
Mr. Gercik, who for some years resided in China, gave a very comprehensive outline of the political and internal situation of that coimtry. Mr. Herbst, in his turn, quite widely discussed the trades and industrial luiions. Mr. Wagner and Mr. Chud offered many important points on the subjects received. The membership asked many questions, tand with the alert and keen insight shown by them, kept tilie meeting moving at a fast pace.
The Forum wishes to express its appreciation to Mrs. Tina Wagner, Mr. S. Herbst, Mr. A, Gercik and Mr. Ben Chud for their very able contribution to the success of this meeting, and to Mr. Bill Simmons for his capable handling of the chair. y
The Fonun plans to have Mr. Elmore Philpott as guest speaker at their January meeting.
stake in Spain did it because of a "sincere fear of purgatory," the hate mongers in Canaddl are "cruel and calculating and tare using Jew baiting to get votes."
Jews in Canada, he said, are "potential refugees—a nation without a homelai^d and without a base."
Everywhere that Jews have gone in the world ithey have rejected their Jewishness and have taken on th enationality-of the country in which they are citizens;
"However," he stated, "when the publicity gets bad, they are not recognized as Canadians, or .Germans or Argentinians, or what ever nationality they have adopted; they are recognized as Jews.
"This is la world of itationalism. We must be careful that we ate not overwhelmed." ■
Menorah Chapter
The monthly meeting of the Menorah Chapter of Hadassahi was held on Monday, December 23rd, at the home of Yetta Hyatt.
Finial plans were pnade for the open soicial to be convened by Yetta Ludiwig, and hJA^ at the Gonrniimityi Centres on Siaturday^ -January llth. Make .up your ^-tables;. ;and >be > good time.
Current events twere read by Jessie Allman. Marion Eisenscein also read from the Jewish Frontier These were very educational and onjoyed by all.
A.Z.A. 119
On December 22, 1946/ A. Z. A. 119 held their last meieting of the year in which new. dub officers were elected. They are as follows: Aleph Godol (President) '
Gordon Katznelson_ Aleph S'gan Vice-president)
BUI Mtoscovitz Aleph Gisbor' (Iteasurer)
Arnold Nemetz Aleph Mazkir (Secretary)
MortoiT Dodek Aleph Sopher (Reporter)
Harold Berson Aleph Sh'tair Godol (Sergeant-at-Arms) Jerome Angel
Aleph Sh'tair Kotone (Assistant Sergeant - .it - Arms)
Marvin Wosk Aleph Cohen Godol (Chaplain)
P. A. G. Dick Newman Aleph Sh'teel (Club Joker)
Albert Cohen At this meeting, the pledges were initiated inio the club in a very impressive ceremony. Those that were initiated Into the club are now on a six month probation period, but diiring this time they are respected and treated as Al-eph's. Those that were initiated are as follows—Bob Julius, Dave Tessler, Jack Estrln, Harold Eitt-iburg, Louis Himelfarb, and Fred Swartz.
Izzy Diamond reported that the total profits from the convention that was held here last month were $751.50, of which $375.80 goes to eiach of the two chapters.
Dick Newman was elected as our club delegate to represent 119 in the coming convention down in Seattte.
A drive for (parcels for Hungary is now being conducted by Sid Gturevich, also he is, at the present time, constructing a dub scrap book in which club events, pictures, articleii, etc. will be re-coided.
Jewish Doctors Teachers 6* Civil Servants Ousted
BUENOS AIRES (WNS) —^Anti-Semitic officials in the Argentine /Government have ordered the dismiss^ of many Jewish teachers, doctors and civil servants, it was learned here this week. In some cases, instead 'of outright dismissal, Jewish teachers have unwillingly transferred to other cities.
Among the professors recently dismissed from Argentine universities were Dr.^ Jacob Wainer, a professor of Economics and formerly diief government accountant^ and Dr. Sanson Raskovsky, pi^es-sor of Logic. Boith men are active in Jewish communal life here.
Meanwhile, it was disdosed here, the Jewish population of the BoMvian capital La Paz is alarmed at the. appearance of posters throughout the dty wtoning Jews to leave the country within two months or be killed.
Arthur Goldberg Writes of Congress From Basle, Switz.
Dear Folks:
This .is the first letter from Switzerland ;sc> there is plen^ of news to write you. At presHit I am at one, of the sessions of Congress and have left there for a short while in order to write this fetter. We arrived at Basle on the afternoon of the 7th and were immedialtely looked after by a special Congress Committee at the railway station. They took us to a large ibarracks tli^t many scores of people (here are staying at. Tiiae are Youth delegates here from all • over the world, and we have teamed up with a couple from South Africa whom we knew in Eretz Israel. There are also a few from America and many Palestinian Youth studydng in Swiljzetrland, also a bunch of local Zionist Youth. December 8th, the day prior to the Cbngress, there were a number of preliminary sessions. We met the Canadian delegation, led iby S. J. Sachs, eight in all. In the afitemoon we sat in on a meet-ting of the Zionists from Empire countries, chairmanned by Bamett Janner, the prominent British M.P. After the meeting, wie hadi quite a diat with him, and he invited me to ithe House of Commons when we visit in (Londion. Yesterday afternoon, December 9th, 1946, was a historic event, for it marked- the oi>eaiing of the 22nd'World Zionist Cognress, a congress that will go down in history as one of the most •prominent events in modern Jewish history. There are thousands of representatives of [World Jewry present in the famous Swiss town beside the Rhine. There are Jiree hundned and fifty delegates, hundreds of Visitors and observers, and several score Of newspaper reporters and photographers. Seats were absolutely at a premiuin for the opening session, and thousands of people were not admitted. Fortunately I had secured a press card giving me a permanent seat in the upper press gallery. The hall itself is a tremendously Icjrge one, seating perhaps three thousand people. The executive and members of the Agency occupy the seats, sitting below a tremendous pidture of Theodore Hertzei Continued on Page 3
Easterman Warns Against Growing Native Fascism,
llie same-- discrimination that lead to the massacre of 6,000,000 European Jews is rife in Clanada and the United States today.
Almost like; a warning of thiogs to come, Alevander £. Easterman, secretary of the British section. World Jewish Congress, anwi former London newspaperman, cautioned "that Jews of the Dominion "needn't think they can wrap themselves in a warm and comfortable Caiiadian fur and say 'it doesn't conchi us'."
Describing i.the horrors that befell the "pulsatmg, vivid" Jewish conummity in Germany as he saw it in its seqiiel'-at the Nuremberg trials and iji Belsen, Mr. Easterman told his Vancouver Jewish audience Siu^day.
"The real^e^OTsh tragedy is not the dead and the jdying of Europe. but that the Jews forget so easily.
IT CAN HAPFEIT HEBE
"Who has ^ the courage to say this thing and the things that happened in the: last 20 centuries will not happen again. We said In Spain, It can't happen here.' We said it in Poland and in Russia and in Germany.
He.advised Jews in the western world who immerse themselves in the "peace, calm: and abundance" to recall that it in only by an ac-ddent of the forced migration of their parents or grandparents that they are safe today."
♦It is not a God aven xewjird," ' stated^^er-jlbftiai^^^l^^ many of the most dyiiamic meetings of the League of Nations, the United Nations and, most recent" ly the all-revealing "Nurenberg war criminal trials.
"You are safe here enjoying this abimdance ijecause Jewish people Utterly ran for safety for themselves and their children when pogroms and miu:der threat., ened them." i
WALK WITH DEAD
He described- the survivors of six years in "Hitler's inferno"— a hdl "so terrible that it makes Dante's inferno seem like paradise. It is an inferno that neither the genius of Shakespeare nor the pathos of Dickens could never describe."
He told how In Belsenberg today, prematurely old Jewish youths walk at twilight in the original Belsen horror camp. There they pray, but do not weep over heaps of earth. One moimd has a small amatuerish sign over it saying "Here lie 10,000 Jewish dead." Another has "Here lies 5,000 Jewish dead." A third has "3,000 Jewish dead."
"These were once living, vital, real people who loved their families. They had their homes; they had their ambitions and their hopes too. Why did they suffer and rot? What did *hey do to suffer not only murder, but to be buried im-named?"
Reminiscing ovei* "five long horrible weeks" in which the story of Belsen's horrors were told a-gain at the war criminal trials,
Army Cuts DP Food Ration Jewish Leaders Protest
MUNICH (WNS)—Displaced persons in the American zone in Germany have been restricted to indigenous food supplies because of lack of army funds with which to purchase food and shortages, Gen. Joseph T. McNamey, U. S. Commander, announced this week.
The.new diet, it was disclosed, would consist of greater quantities of local stocks such as potatoes and bread and less of imported foodstuffs such as sugar and fats.
' The DPs received the change in
Mr. Easterman told of the pride of the Jews whose, bodies were broken by Nazi atrodties but whose spirit and pride in being Jewish was amazing.
iEUBOPE'S JEWS PROUD
Jewish witneseis, lie said, conducted themsdves with "calm, dignity and restraint."
"Jewish displace persons are not humiliated nor doyncast. But rather are they resurrected in Jewish spirit. They are not complaining, but proud.
"Though they have no cotmtry, no home, no family, no food no clothing, these remnants of Jews do not beg, nor cringe lior do they ask for alms. T^ey have much more Jewish dignity and courage than you or I have."
You, far away from the scene of action, can lay aside your sense of pity iind only admire those who have survived.
DISCRIMINATION MENACE
They scom diarity and the thought of ;^il^ They only ask . that, y^ .the . outside
world'^^IOown wifli us so we fcan ork out a common destiny."
Me. Easterman said that those people of Canada and the United States are '^ot free of difficulty. They remind us that in America there is a thing called discrimination."
Jews in the displaced persons camp say "We too suffered from discrimination. Sit with us and learn from our experience."
Today, said Mr. Easterman, Jews of Europe are once agam on the run.
In Poland, where Poles themselves suffered massacre and the indignity of slave labor, the remaining 100,000 of the former 3,-500,000 Jewish i)opulation are being slaughtered in Polish - made pogroms. Now, with coming elections, the renmants there fear massacre of their numbers.
In Rumania where economic problems are arising out of the bad harvest this summer, the 350,-000 remaining of the 1940 total of 900,000, half starved, broken Jews are now blamed for this condition. and once again threatened with' persecution.
Jews in Hxmgapr--250,000 remaining of the 1940 total of 800,000— are. he said, "the worst situated in Europe".
In Czefchoslovakia, the model democratic state in Europe, the remaining 50,000 may have to leave because "life is so imcertain." JEWS FLEE EUROPE
"Jews cannot live in Europe any longer," Mr. Easterman said. "They are all i)otential displaced persons
diet with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm land 500 Jewish teadiers in the DP camps went on strike for greater foodratlons. Leaders of the displaced Jews in Germany and representatives of the volim-tary relief agendes protested that *Hhe already .dnab diet available to the displaced persons will become drabber," causing further disccmtent and unrest. "What can you expect when the DP's see all imported American food going to the Germans and nothing to the German's victims," one spokesman declared.
and are seeking to escape.
"Do you know what it means to escape or leave Eiurbpe? It does not meian buying a railway or plane ticket with diner and berfli Deservlations. It (mebns running away with a little bunc hand and
____„
"frontier^ 3 swimmings in forests.^ always buiniSftM^''l^'tfie child and bunaie."
And "at the end of it all, destination is imknown."
These people, he reminded his audience, have no plaoe to go. No country in the expansive world with its tremendous xmused lands will have them. ,
ON TO PALESTINE
"The vast majority of the Jews of Europe WILL escape and they will go to no other plaoe in the world but Palestine,
"They will get there. They will get there not because they just want to get there but because they have the coiurage, determination and faith to' readi Palestine.
"The flight of European Jews to get to safety means an unparalleled responsibility on Jews who are not forced to undergo such risks."
"Remember," he said, "the Jewish problem will not be solved by non-Jews, but by the Jews themselves.
"Your kith and kin are on the march out of Europe. It is your duty to help them find their way out.
"Adolph Hitler is dead, and the war against Naziism is ended. But the war against the Jewish people is not over. Every single man and woman has a contribution to make and a duty in fighting this,"
ENDORSATIONS GRANTED
Canadian Hebrew Active Club
jh. B'nai B'rith Girls Hanlta Club Hanita Club Vancouver Hatiassah Foadei Zion Organization Vancouver Perefz School
New Year's Eve Dance-Community Centre Tolo Dance at Hotel Georgia Raffle Danoe
Youth Aliyah Campaign Goverkshaften Campaign Bazaar
Dec 31
Jan. 4 January Jan. 28 Jan. 15 - 31 Feb. 15 - Mar. 1 Feb. 19
$8.00 co
$2.00
$15,000 $10,000