Executive Committee Hears Reports of Religious Work in Europe (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The attitude of the Agudath Israel in Poland in standing outside the bloc of the national minorities has since been justified, Dr. Pinchas Kohn, President of the Agudah World Executive, declared in his report on the political activities of the Executive, submitted to the Conference of the Central Council of the Agudath Israel which has just been concluded here. “All serious Jewish circles,” he said, “are now opposed to the anti-Government policy of the Zionist hotheads.”
Dr. Kohn dealt with the activities conducted towards securing the independence of the Orthodox Jewish Communities of Palestine, the work at the League of Nations in connection with the reform of the calendar carried on in co-operation with the Jewish ecclesiastical authorities in England and France and the work in regard to Jewish education in Russia conducted in co-operation with the Conference of Chief Rabbis in Holland.
A report on the work of the Keren Hatorah was submitted by Dr. Deutschlander who said that in the last eighteen months about $50,000 had been distributed among institutions of Jewish learning in Europe and Palestine. He dealt in particular with the Beth Jacob movement which was now educating about 15,000 Jewish girls in Eastern Europe in over 100 schools. The Beth Jacob movement was remarkable, he said, in that it had received the moral and material support of all Jewish elements. Zionists and Agudists, Reformers and the most Orthodox, had done everything possible to further this movement, which was rearing a new generation of Jewish girlhood in Eastern Europe.
Dr. Deutschlander referred to the new situation which had arisen in Hungary because of the permission given to the Zionist Organization to establish itself in that country. “The Agudah,” he said “no longer needed any ‘Kampf nach Rechts’, for Orthodoxy throughout the world, whether organized within the Agudah or neutral towards its work now recognized it as the legitimate representative of independent traditional Judaism.
“The position in Russia was tragic,” Dr. Deutschlander declared. “Before the war 800,000 Jewish children in Russia were receiving a religious education. Today barely one-tenth perhaps are being taught in Jewish schools.
“In Salonica,” he continued, “there is no school for teachers. Before the war there were fifty Jewish schools. Today Salonica only has about five Jewish schools. The Keren Hatorah and the Beth Jacob proposed to extend their activities shortly in Greece and the Balkan countries. The Agudah stood above all geographical limitations and it is as ready to assist Sephardim as Ashkenazim.”
Jacob Rosenheim, chairman of the Political Executive, spoke of the reasons which had moved the Executive not to take part in the Jewish Minorities Conference in Zurich. He said that they had pointed out the differences of opinion existing between them and the national groups and they had to consider the views of their co-religionists in Eastern Europe in these matters. The Agudah had on the proposal of Deputy Kirschbraun formed a separate political commission to co-ordinate the political forces of Orthodoxy throughout the world.
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