Annual Anti-passover Campaign Announced in Moscow: More Moderate Than in Previous Years According to

The annual anti-Passover campaign in the Soviet countries, the commencement of which is announced to-day by the Yiddish Communist daily “Emess” here, looks like being much more moderate than in previous years, aiming rather at utilising the campaign period for the intensification of the Jewish land-settlement and industrialisation movement than at militant anti-religious activity.

The anti-religious Jewish youth is urged by the “Emess” to-day to make use of the month still left till Passover for the purpose of carrying on with greater vigour the Jewish colonisation campaign and other campaigns directed towards the migration of Jews from the small towns to the areas of Jewish agricultural settlement in the Crimea and Bureya and the placing of the Jews in industry. The “Emess” links up the campaign with the anti-Passover activity by accusing the Jewish clergy of sabotaging the transmigration and productivisation movement among the Jews, but no definite onslaught is made so far on the religious institutions as such.

Meanwhile, Jews in Moscow are baking matzoth from flour which they have saved up for the purpose through the entire winter. The bakeries are charging 40 roubles for baking a pood of matzoth, and official licences have been issued to the bakeries which are working in day and night shifts to enable them to cope with the demand.

There is every indication also of the synagogues being filled for the Purim services and big Purim concerts are being arranged.

Last year the anti-Passover campaign coincided with the storm created all over the world in connection with the arrest of the Minsk Rabbis, and the League of the Godless pointed to this fact in the instructions which it issued to its members with regard to the method of conducting the anti-Passover campaign, urging that on this account the fight against religious sentiments among the Jews in the Soviet countries should be made more aggressive than ever in retaliation for the anti-Soviet campaign of the Rabbis abroad. The “Emess” called upon the Jews to give up voluntarily all objects in their possession intended for religious purposes to the Industrialisation Fund and to resign collectively from membership of the Jewish religious communities in all places where such communities still exist. About that time, however, influenced by the world-wide protest movement against the persecution of religion in the Soviet Union, it is believed, the Central Committee of the Communist Party ordered the discontinuation of the practice of closing down places of worship under the pretext of a fictitious voluntarily-expressed desire of the local population and a slowing-down of the anti-religious movement generally. The Jewish Communists thereupon suddenly dropped their previous aggressive anti-Passover agitation, and the “Emess” for instance suggested that it would be advisable to stop going about collecting religious articles and to leave it to the owners of these articles to bring them along themselves if they wish. “Make no noise” read the headline over an article appearing at the same time in the “Bezbozhnik” (the Godless), the chief organ of the League of the Godless, instructing its members to refrain from holding anti-religious carnivals, demonstrations or meetings outside the synagogues or churches during Passover or Easter, and to abandon them if they had already been arranged.

When Passover came, the synagogues in Moscow and other towns were packed, and the Seder was celebrated in many homes without being disturbed in any way by anti-religious obstructions or street demonstrations. Hundreds of people stood in quoues outside the offices of the Moscow Synagogue during the last few days before Passover to obtain matzoth, which were sold at two roubles a pound to those who could pay and were given away free to those who could not. The “Oktiabr”, the Jewish Communist organ in Minsk, published a list of Jewish members of the Communist Party who had been discovered to have secretly bought matzoth. Reports from Minsk, Charkoff, and other cities stated that not only Jewish artisans but also Jewish factory workers and even members of the Communist Party had bought matzoth and were observing Passover.