Minister of Labor Denies Discrimination by Government (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
A demand that the government recognize the right of Jews to work was made by Deputy Isaac Gruenbaum in the Sejm Budget Commission during the discussion on the Labor Ministry’s estimate. Deputy Gruenbaum charged that a boycott system against Jewish workers continues. Jewish workers are not hired for state works. The deputy produced a document, a circular issued by the Seacoast Bureau, stating that only persons who have been baptized may be employed.
The Jewish masses are threatened with ruin in case the boycott is continued, Gruenbaum declared.
Minister of Labor Moraczewski, in reply denied that a boycott was in force against Jews. Jewish workers are employed in state works, he said. “Don’t make false accusations, as was the case in 1918, when an anti-Jewish pogrom was alleged to have taken place in Kielce,” the Labor Minister stated to Deputy Gruenbaum. “Then the Jewish press in America wrote that seventy Jews had been killed. Protest meetings were held, but an investigation disclosed that all that had occurred was a fight between a soldier and a Jew over a girl.”
Concerning the document produced by Deputy Gruenbaum, the Minister promised an investigation.
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.
