KAHN, Julius. Presented an anti-Zionist petition signed by 31 prominent American Jews to President Woodrow Wilson, 1919

Julius Kahn (February 28, 1861 - December 18, 1924) immigrated from Germany to the United States with his parents in 1866. He was a Republican US Congressman 1899-1903 and 1904-1924. Julius Kahn presented an anti-Zionist petition signed by 31 prominent American Jews to President Woodrow Wilson as he was departing for the Paris Peace Conference (March 1919) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Kahn and http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/is-it-anti-semitic-to-defend-palestinian-human-rights/ ).

Julius Kahn presented an anti-Zionist petition signed by 31 prominent American Jews to President Woodrow Wilson as he was departing for the Paris Peace Conference (March 1919). The petition was signed by 31 prominent American Jews. The signatories included Henry Morgenthau, Sr., ex-ambassador to Turkey; Simon W. Rosendale, ex-attorney general of New York; Mayor L. H. Kampner of Galveston, Texas; E. M. Baker, from Cleveland and president of the Stock Exchange; R. H. Macy’s Jesse I. Straus; New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs; and Judge M. C. Sloss of San Francisco. Part of the petition read: “…we protest against the political segregation of the Jews and the re-establishment in Palestine of a distinctively Jewish State as utterly opposed to the principles of democracy which it is the avowed purpose of the World’s Peace Conference to establish. Whether the Jews be regarded as a “race” or as a “religion,” it is contrary to the democratic principles for which the world war was waged to found a nation on either or both of these bases.” [1].

[1]. Julius Kahn petition, quoted by Edward Corrigan in “Is it anti-Semitism to defend Palestinian human rights? Jewish opposition to Zionism”, Dissident Voice, 1 September 2009: http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/is-it-anti-semitic-to-defend-palestinian-human-rights/ .