American Jewish Congress Calls Meeting to Discuss the Excesses in Roumania

The anti-Jewish demonstrations in Roumania, which culminated recently in actual violence to Jewish life and property in the city of Kishineff, as well as the continued ill-treatment of the Jews in other countries of Eastern Europe, will be the subject of a special conference called by the officers of the American Jewish Congress, for next Sunday evening, December 19th, at the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York Jewish members of the United States Congress and leading Jewish communal workers are expected to attend the Conference.

Invitations to this conference have been issued over the signatures of Dr. Stephen S. Wise, President of the American Jewish Congress, Max D. Steuer, Chairman of its Advisory Council, and Carl Sherman, Chairman of its Administrative Committee.

“This conference,” explained Dr. Wise, “is preparatory to an extraordinary session of the American Jewish Congress which will be convened in Washington in February, 1927.

“Conditions for the Jew in Roumania have been particularly bad in recent years, and we had not believed they could be much worse. But American Jewry was shocked-as indeed, the whole of America must have been-by the news, a few days ago, of a pogrom which occurred in Kishineff perpetrated by the Roumanian students, who were returning from a Congress held with the avowed purpose of fosterning anti-Semitism. We thought we were done with pogroms when Czarist Russia fell and countries like Roumania put their signatures to covenants that imposed upon them the obligation to respect the rights of the minority peoples within their borders.

“In the face of the outrages which are occuring daily in Roumania and the practice of Jew-baiting which has again become common throughout Eastern and Central Europe, American Jewry cannot stand idly by and permit the continuance of conditions which, it had reason to believe, the post-war treaties had ended.

“For this reason, we have, as a preliminary step, called together those who are charged with Jewish leadership in their respective communities, in order to lay before them the information which we have and to arrive at a common understanding as to the most effective manner in which the assistance of American Jewry may be extended.”

Among those who are expected to participate in the conference are: the Hon. Isaac Bachrach of Italantic City, Hon. Adolph J. Sabath of Chicago, Hon. Benj. Golder of Philadelphia, Hon. Florence P. Kahn of San Francisco, Hon. Meyer Jacobstein of Rochester, Hon. Sol Bloom, Hon. Emanuel Celler, Hon. Samuel Dickstein, Hon. Nathan D. Perlman of New York Hon. William I. Sirowich and Hon. W. W. Cohen, Congressmen-elect from New York; Benjamin Winter, Arthur M. lamport, Justice Gustave Hartman, Louis S. Posner, Dr. A. J. Rongy, Bernard S. Deutsch, Dr. J. Tenenbaum, Robert Szold, Benjamin W. Titman, Justice Aaron J. Levy, Louis Lande David Shapiro, Samuel Spring, David Surdut, and Louis N. Jaffe.