Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Workers’ Conference Demands Main Synagogue Be Converted into Club

November 4, 1929
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

A resolution to convert the Moscow Main Synagogue into a workmen’s club was adopted by the Impartial Jewish Workers Conference in session here. The conference appointed a delegation to submit the request for the conversion of the synagogue to the authorities. It is not expected that their mission will be successful as the final decision rests with Vice-President Peter Smidovitch, who recently aroused the anger of Jewish Communists by postponing Collectivization Day for the Jewish colonists because it coincided with the Day of Atonement.

A demand that repressions against Jewish Nepmen be discontinued was presented to the conference by Miss Gontcharova, representing thirty-five Jewish workers in the factory, Proletarski Trud. She complained that confidence does not exist in the Jewish workers on the part of non-Jewish workers in the Soviet factories. Anti-Semitism is growing in the factories, she declared.

The address of Miss Gontcharova created a stir among the delegates. A number of speakers rose to criticize her, emphasizing that the working class cannot adopt a policy of pity and no concessions can be possible for the former Jewish traders.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement