Agudists Elected to All Offices in Warsaw Kehillah

Eli Mazur, Agudist leader, was elected president of the Warsaw Jewish community, the largest in Europe, today at the meeting of the newly-elected executive of the community under the chairmanship of Heschel Farbstein, former president of the community and now a member of the World Zionist Executive and of the Jewish Agency Executive.

Mazur was elected by the close vote of eight to seven. All eight Agudist members of the executive of the community’s council voted for Mazur while the four Zionists, two Mizrachists and one representative of the Non-Partisan religious bloc opposed him. The first vice-presidency also went to an Agudist, Moses Lerner. As a result of Lerner’s election the Zionists refused to accept the second vice-presidency. The Agudists also won the presidency of the council when Jacob Trockenheim was elected.

The council of the Warsaw community has fifty members, the Agudath having a bare majority of one by having created a united bloc with the Non-Partisan religious bloc, the Folkists and the Assimilationists, who have six seats between them. The other twenty-four seats are divided between the Zionists, the Mizrachi, the Democrats, the Left Poale Zion, the Grodzisker Chassidim and other parties.

At the first two meetings of the executive the Zionists and Agudists came to blows and it was considered unlikely that either of them would be able to create a stable majority to enable it to form an administration to carry on the affairs of the community. It had been suggested that a government commissioner might be needed to take over the affairs of the community.