The fear that an unusually large number of the Roumanian Jewish youth may a few years hence withdraw from the Jewish community and become baptized into Christianity as a result of the fact that Jewish children in Roumanian now are forced to take Christian religious instruction in the schools, is expressed in a recent article in the Roumanian Jewish paper, “Stiri.” The writer blames the parents for their indifference to the situation and says:
“The attitude of indifference on the part of Jewish parents and pupils has brought now, and will bring in the future even more, dire consequences. Today perhaps they are not filled with a disquieting fear, but their attitude will bring them in the near future the greatest discomforts.
“It is not so hard to foresee that the lack of pride and of Jewish consciousness, which Jewish parents and pupils now show, will encourage the educational authorities to annul the rights won until now by the Jews. On the other hand I think I am not far from right when I predict for the next few years an unheard of large number of withdrawals from Judaism and mass conversions among the youth, for the youth will be free of all moral obligations and will have no reason for cherishing and preserving those Jewish ethical values which are utterly unknown to it.
“It is also not difficult to foresee that the educational authorities and the Christian religious teachers, who today are disregarding an existing law, since the enforcement of that law is not demanded strongly enough from them will in the near future abolish entirely a law which is not being used and which is of no use.
“Then the Jewish parents, after a few years when the plague of baptism will rap at every door, will awake and will ask that their children be exempted from Christian religious instruction. But then the education authorities may quite properly refuse them, since they may claim that this is a demand which from long disuse has proven itself to be absolutely useless and harmful for the school system.
“I should be glad if my prophecies were not to come true.”
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.
