Warsaw Kehillah Council, First Democratic Body, Opens Session

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The inaugural meeting of the Warsaw Kehillah, the largest Jewish community in Europe, was held here yesterday.

The present Kehillah assembly and council were elected by a vote taken on broad democratic principles. This resulted in the election of representatives of all parties and groups active in Jewish life in Poland. The groups were seated according to their affiliation. Representatives of the labor parties, Bund and Poale Zion, were seated on the left, representatives of the Zionists, Mizrachi and Volkspartei in the center and the Agudists and non-partisans on the right.

The meeting was opened by the former president of the Kehillah Council, Mr. Bregmann, with an address which he delivered in Hebrew, Yiddish and Polish. When he spoke in Hebrew the representatives of the Left protested. The protest resulted in a tumult which continued throughout the meeting.

The Agudath Israel, the Orthodox Jewish party, was victorious in the election to the praesidium, due, it was declared, to a bloc formed with the non-partisan group. Deputy Kirschbraun, representative of the Agudah in the Polish Sejm. was elected president of the Council and Jacob Trockenheim, Agudah member, was elected vice-president. The Zionists and the Mizrachi members refrained from voting. The Poale Zion and the Volkists cast blank votes. The candidate of the Bund, Ehrlich, received five votes.

Representatives of the various groups read declarations. Zerubabel, representative of the Poale Zion, protested in his declaration against the Polish government for causing the delay of the opening of the Kehillah for twenty months by issuing an order prohibiting the use of any other language beside Polish at the meetings. The order was recently withdrawn. He pointed to the great unemployment in the country and the resulting poverty among the Jewish masses. He demanded that the Council appropriate the sum of 20,000 Zlotys for immediate relief for the Jewish unemployed and 10,000 Zlotys for the Yiddish schools.

Mr. Ehrlich read a declaration on behal’ of the Bund party, demanding that Yiddish be declared the only language of the Kehillah. He also protested against the religious character of the Kehillah. He also protested against the religious character of the Kehillah statutes and urged the appointment of a special commission for the relief of the Jewish unemployed. Dr. Gottlieb, representative of the Zionists, declared that his group would submit a declaration at the next meeting.