8vo. 124 pp., publisher’s original wrappers, appendix, a compliment slip from Louis Marshall, the cover is lightly soiled and rubbed at spine extremities, otherwise copy in good condition. Privately printed in New York, 1924.

Synopsis

Rare document. Louis Marshall chaired on 24 February 1924 a “Non-Partisan Conference to Consider Problems” at Astor Hotel, New York. The conference was a step to create the Jewish Agency. The Jewish agency was to take over from the Zionist Organization the League of Nations Mandate – assigned duties of implementing Jewish “Upbuilding” development in Palestine.
A call to Jews of all shades of opinion to consider the upbuilding of Palestine not only the task of Zionists but as an all-Jewish problem was voiced by Louis Marshall, Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Judge Irving Lehman, and many other speakers.
Marshall declared: “With the Prophet we say, ‘Peace to him who is far off and peace to him who is near.’ That is our greeting to all the world. Let us be united in good works. We have enemies from without. I am entirely indifferent to them. Let there not be enemies from within. That would be a tragedy. Then let us all unite in this great cause. Let us speed it. Let us feel that it is our work, our problem and another glorious page will be written in the annals of the Jews of the world”.
This work contains all the speeches delivered at that historic conference which turned out to be the corner stone of financing the Jewish settlements in Palestine throughout the 20th century.
This is a rare and important historical document which records the proceedings of a meeting at the Astor Hotel, New York on 17th February 1924, chaired by Louis Marshall. The purpose was to unify the various strands of Jewish activity, Zionist and non-Zionist, in the US and consider the formation of an investment corporation to provide capital for the development of Palestine in conjunction with the Jewish Agency. Presentations made by fourteen of the main delegates are included, such as Weizmann, Ruppin, Cyrus Adler, Irving Lehman, Abram Simon, Horace Stern, and many others. There are pictures of some delegates. Some investment figures are estimated, together with some population estimates. The appendix incorporates extracts from a number of British documents, and some from the 12th and 13th Zionist congresses in Carlsbad concerning Jewish relations with Palestinian Arabs.