A ZIONIST CHEQUE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1910, Page 13

A ZIONIST CHEQUE.

FOR THE HEJAS RAILWAY. A correspondent at Cologne writing to the St. James's Budget states : — A report appeared in a. number of .lewspapers about two months ago that a cheque signed by the leader of the Zionist Organisation, Herr David Wolffsohn, who lives in Cologne, was found among the private papers of the late Sultan Abdul Hamid, and all sorts of conjectures were made as to its amount and the purpose for which it had been intended. I therefor© called upon Herr Wolffisohn, who has only recently returned from a sixweeks' rest-cure at Homburg, and he told me the curious history of this cheque. More than two years ago, in June, 1908, the Central Executive of the Zionist Organisation decided to send a cheque for £500 to the ex-Sultan as a contribution to the fund for the Bejas Railway. A telegraphic acknowledgement was received from the Turkish Ambassador in Berlin, Ahmed Tewfik Pasha, stating that the money could not be accepted for the Hejiis Railway, to which only Mahomme■dans could subscribe, and asking whether it could bo used for any other good purpose. The Zionist executive naturally acquiesced, but was not informed what alternative object had been selected. A month later the Turkish revolution broke out, and nothing more was heard of the cheque until it was unearthed at Yildiz Kiosk a few months ago. When the precious document reached the Jewish Colonial Trust in London, upon which it had been drawn, the latter would not honour it owing to the lengthy interval that had elapsed, and it was therefore sent back to the Porte. Thereupon the Turkish Government forwarded a Note on the subject to the Zionist executive, in which the mero facts of the case were recited. The Zionist executive held a meeting here on Sunday, and resolved to redeem the promise made more than two years ago. Herr Woltfsohn has therefore written to the Turkish Government that he is willing to make out a new cheque for £500, as a contribution to the Hejas railway fund, if this should be agreeable to the Poite.