Faltering Sokolov

Left to themselves in comparative peace, by the Vienna rabble, the 14th Zionist Congressmen (TIME, Aug. 24th, 31) last week made war with one another. The Congress had practically decided to elect Nahum Sokolov, executive committee head, President of the World Zionists. The outgoing President, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, was apparently willing to take a vacation.

Then suddenly, the attacks on Dr. Weizmann's administration from the fiery Russo-Jewish-Parisian swashbuckler, Jabotinsky, became so bitter that the Weizmann group insisted on a special rate of confidence in their leader with a view of his reelection. But two-thirds of the delegates refused to vote. Confusion spread. Dr. Weizmann stung by the ingratitude of Jewry, resigned, refused reelection. Confusion was confounded.

Had Nahum Sokolov been a man of greater soul-breadth, he might have restored peace and been elected President. For he is a most distinguished man in whom his race takes pride. Born in Wishograd, Russian Poland, he was an intellectual prodigy at ten. He has been a journalistic prodigy ever since, is the most prolific Jewish writer of this generation. Histories, primers, geographies, magazine articles--there is nothing he has not written. But he was not the man to quench the fire in Jabotinsky's eyes. He was not the man to wean from Weizmann the financial support of U. S. and British Jews. In political confusion, he was lost.

For a moment, it seemed that the whole Zionist movement might disrupt. But, finally, after long nights of committee meetings, a guarded resolution was passed declaring Dr. Weizmann to be the moral leader of Zionists--and, by implication, if he care to be it, president.