Anti- Semitism in Soviet Russia Growing Menace, Soviet Press States

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

Anti- Semitism in Russia, especially among the working-class has grown to such an extent that it has become necessary to intensify the campaign against it. Scarcely a week passes without a conference or meeting being held for the purpose of combating anti-Semitism. The press is devoting a great deal of space to this question.

Today the “Pravda” publishes a long article by the well-known journalist, Sosnovsky, in the course of which he writes:

“Before the Revolution, anti-Semitism was something foreign to the worker. In 1914, there was a strike at one of the most important factories in Petrograd. A Jewish workman named Jacob Strougin had committed suicide because the manager had wrongly accused him of theft. He left a letter to his comrades protesting his innocence. The Russian workers gave Strongin an imposing funeral, and went on strike demanding the dismissal of the manager. The strike lasted one hundred and one days and the whole of the proletariat in Petrograd stood united in the strike. No one thought of asking whether it was worth while for Russian workers and their wives and children to face starvation in a strike because of the death of a Jew. Today.” Sosnovsky proceeds, “things are happening in Russia which are a thousand times more disgraceful than the Strougin affair, and they pass almost unnoticed.

“Anti-Semitism was always the weapon of the reactionaries, and it is the weapon of the counter-revolutionaries now. Yet there are communists who preach anti-Semitism. It is essential for the whole population to war against anti-Semitism In former days, the Czarist Government itself incited against the Jews and organized pogroms. But today the power lies in the hands of those who carried on a strike for a hundred and one days because of the honor of a Jewish workman. They must gird their loins to fight anti-Semitism,” he concludesd.

The new Temple Beth El and community Cemer of San Autouio. Texas, was dedicated last week.

Presentation of the temple buildings was made at the Friday evening sevices by Joe M. Frost, vice-president of the congregation, and by Miss Hannah Hirshberg, president of the Beth El Sisterhood. Morris Stern, Beth El president, delivered the acceptance address. Addresses were delivered by Rabbis Henry Cohen, David Lefkowitz and Ephraim Fritsch, rabbi of the congregation.

The new Temple Beth El has an auditorium seating about 1,000, while the balcony takes care of approximately 200 persons. The exterior treatment is a stucco. The line of construction carrying up to the dome is Byzantine, while the decoration is Spanish.

The curved portion of the arches, vaults, pendentive and the dome are acoustically corrected.

Connecting the Temple to the Community Center is an arched passageway.

The Community Center will house the educational and social activities. There are twelve class rooms and an assembly hall. In close proximity is the general office, the rabbi’s study and a vault for records. On the second floor overlooking the assembly hall is the library.