Talk:Pro-Jerusalem Society

"the President of the Jewish lay community" in Jerusalem: who would that be?

The source says "the President of the Jewish lay community". Mjsedgwick, who created this article, replaced "Jewish lay community" with Jewish Agency, complete with wikilink to the JA. Is there a source for that? Unfortunately, Mjsedgwick seems to have ceased to edit in 2017 after a relatively small number of contributions that year and none in 2016, so we cannot expect an answer from that corner. Anyway, the President of the Jewish lay community in Jerusalem is not the same as the head of the JA as such, so the text should at least indicate it's about the head of the JA's local branch, with the proper title (and name?) if available. Arminden (talk) 21:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Arminden The constitution, which appears in an appendix in the report for 1918–1920, which I cited for the first sentence, says "The following shall be ex-officio members of the Council: ... The Head of the Jewish Community". The Council at the time of publication (1921), the Council included "The President of the Jewish Community" and "The Chairman of the Zionist Commission". Note that neither "lay" nor "in Jerusalem" are present, so don't add them. At the time of publication of the next report (1924), the Council included "The Very Reverend Chief Rabbi Kuk" and "The Representative of the Palestine Zionist Executive". The Zionist Commission was the forerunner of the Palestine Zionist Executive, which in turn was the forerunner of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, but it wasn't called that until later. It is odd that the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi was on the Council and the Sephardi Chief Rabbi was not. It wasn't because of an ideological objection, because "The Council of Sephardic Jews" is listed as a subscriber. Zero^talk 02:49, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

@Zero0000: hi. I have no interest or preference, truly none. I don't intend to add anything to what an apparently excellent source is saying. I just looked it up, out of curiosity, because there was a link there that made me wonder, and the source didn't support it. Check for yourself, The Handbook of Palestine (1922), p. 131 - the page is linked in the 'References' list. It literally says "the President of the Jewish lay community". I wanted to know who that might be, therefore my post here. H.C. Luke was "Asst. Governor of Jerusalem" and E. Keith-Roach, "Asst. Chief Secretary to the Government of Palestine", the book has an introduction by Herbert Samuel, and was published in 1922 - "under the Authority of the Government of Palestine", no less. It had to take its word for it. But OK, any source can be wrong. "The Representative of the Palestine Zionist Executive" was seen as the lay representative of the Jews ("New Yishuv"), while Rabbi Kook as the head of the religious, traditional community ("Old Yishuv"). Not just in Jerusalem, in the whole of Palestine, that is obvious. I also find it interesting that the Society didn't adopt the Sephardic chief rabbi into its Council; that would have been a step too far "eastwards", I guess. Subscriber or not. If the Dominicans had their ex officio seat reserved (and I'm not talking about the Latin Patriarch or the Franciscan Custos), then I see no reason for the till-then Hakham Basha to be left out if both sides had the honest intention to cooperate. Weird though, because the Sephardic notables had quite a few highly educated, and I mean Western-educated members, which should have made a smooth cooperation possible, if both sides wanted it. Who knows. Also, Kook seems to have received his title from the Brits in 1921, so between 1918-1921 the Council didn't have any representative of the religious Old Yishuv, or did it? It probably doesn't really matter, just thoughts & questions coming up when one thinks it through. Logic & permutations, in a place where Realpolitik, well-intended colonial thinking and the period-specific aesthetics of Ashbee & Storrs were the real engine. I guess the Brits made the decisions and the locals had more of a consultative role, helping the authorities not overstep out of ignorance of local taboos. People like the American Colony members, the learned & long-acclimatised friars, and the Western-educated European Jews (don't see any Nashashibis etc. on the list) probably helped as go-betweens, too. But I might be wrong, it was a time when modernising = Westernising was on everybody's mind.

OK, so the target is the "Palestine Zionist Executive". Shall we use "President of the Jewish lay community,[4] i.e. the representative of the Palestine Zionist Executive.[1]" ([1] = "Preface"..., the source indicated by you)? "Palestine Zionist Executive" redirects to a paragraph in the Jewish Agency article. Arminden (talk) 05:16, 13 November 2020 (UTC)