PITTSBURGH (Nov. 2)
A resolution urging the 100,000 members of Hadassah to “mobilize for national defense and protection of American democracy,” was adopted at the 27th annual Hadassah convention which ended its sessions here today. Mrs. David de Sola Pool, president of Hadassah, said that the resolution was in answer to President Roosevelt’s letter to the convention appealing for the “defeat of the forces of aggression.”
Dr. Abram L. Sachar, addressing the convention, said: “The overwhelming pressure upon the American-Jewish community for resources to support relief and defense needs and the institutional fabric of Palestine has inevitably shunted into the background the claims of Jewish education. Yet it requires no prescience to realize that, even in the heart of crisis, there can be no moratorium on the cultural activities which give cohesion and stamina to the American-Jewish community.”
Dr. L. M. Birkhead, national director of the Friends of Democracy, told the convention that the United States should create a ministry of information to combat Nazi propaganda and to spread propaganda for democracy. Describing anti-Semitism as the “spearhead of fifth-column activities,” Dr. Birkhead said that the “American Nazi movement” has become respectable. It drapes its program, not in the swastika, but in the Stars and Stripes, he said. A memorial meeting to the late Justice Brandeis and a Balfour Day celebration both held today marked the closing of the five-day convention.