Non-religious Jews in Warsaw Allowed to Contest Jewish Communal Elections in May Despite Government

Regardless of the new Jewish community regulations issued by the Government depriving non-religious Jews of the right to vote or stand for election to the Jewish communities, the Executive of the Warsaw Jewish Community has decided not to eliminate any members of the Jewish Community from the electoral lists for the next elections ordered by the Government to take place in May.

In Lodz, the authorities have dissolved the Board and the Executive of the Lodz Jewish Community, on account of the continuous conflicts between the two bodies, it is stated, and has appointed a new Executive headed by the former President, Deputy Minsberg, an Agudist leader and a member of the Government Party in the Seym, with five Agudists, two Zionists, and one Bundist, belonging to the old Executive, leaving out the representatives of the non-partisan orthodox and the Left Poale Zionists.

The Bundists seceded from the Warsaw Jewish Community in 1929, declaring in their statement at the time that they did so because they had found it impossible owing to the attitude of the Zionist and Agudist majority to carry out their purpose of converting the Jewish Community into a secular, national-cultural autonomous organisation, with its charity activities converted into social-aid work and the Jewish school system secularised. At the very first meeting of the Community held in 1924 the Bundist fraction submitted a formal protest against the religious character of the Community, insisting that in their view it was the representative body of the whole Jewish population and not merely of its religious section. Some time ago, the religious groups protested against an article in the Bundist organ declaring that the Bundist aim in the Community was to fight against Jewish clericalism. There was also an outcry over a public statement by the Bundist leader, Councillor Ehrlich, a member at the time of the Community Board, that he does not belong to the Jewish faith. Much feeling was also caused by the refusal of another Bundist member of the Community Board, M. Alter, to have his infant son circumcised.