(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Thirty-one rabbis leaders of Jewish congregations in Minsk, Witebsk. Homel, Bobruisk and other cities in White Russia, published a protest in the Yiddish Communist daily, “Oktyabr,” against resolutions adopted recently at the Conference of Polish Rabbis in Cracow and the Mizrachi conference in Warsaw.
In these resolutions, the Polish rabbis and the Mizrachi leaders reiterated their protest against the religious persecutions in Soviet Russia. The resolution called for the creation of a special committee to deal with the subject.
The thirty-one rabbis, whose names are signed to the protest in the “Oktyabr,” declare that the Polish rabbis have more cause to complain of conditions in their own country than to protest against religious persecutions in Russia. The Jews in Poland have fewer rights than the Jews in Soviet Russia. Besides, the White Russian rabbis utter a protest against what is termed in the text “exploitation of religion in politics.”
Well informed Orthodox Jewish leaders here who are close to the Agudath Israel declare that these thirty-one rabbis were, apparently, coerced into signing the protest. It is noted that even in this protest the rabbis do not deny the existence of religious persecutions. The Communist daily which published the protest simultaneously rebukes the rabbis as “clericals” and states editorially that religion is and will be persecuted in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
