Between the Lines

Reports from responsible Jewish leaders in Rumania this week indicate a change for the worse as far as the Jewish situation in Rumania is concerned. Furthermore, they give grounds to fear that serious attention will have to be paid by Jewish organizations in the near future to the fate of Rumanian Jewry.

Anti-Semitic organizations in Rumania, though prohibited from carrying on their activities, are nevertheless coming to the fore now and are again ready to start violent campaigning against the Jews. Officially illegal, they are trying to legalize their activities through other parties which are still legal.

LONDON ON GUARD

That the Jewish position in Rumania will now require closer observance has also been established by the Board of Jewish Deputies in London. At its meeting last Sunday it called attention to the increasing anxiety among the Jews in Rumania, especially because of new governmental decrees to be promulgated in the next few weeks and which will rob many Jews of employment.

The elimination of Jews from state employment in Rumania is not new. It seems, however, that the governments now intends to force private employers also to dismiss their Jewish employes. Rumanian newspapers make it quite clear that the government will not permit any private firms to send money abroad in order to import goods, if the Jewish employes in these firms are not replaced by Rumanians.

This measure prohibiting firms from sending money abroad to pay for imported goods is perhaps one of the most effective methods of exerting pressure upon private enterprises for mass dismissals of Jews. According to the regulations existing in Rumania, no money can be sent out of the country, except with government permission. Thus, private firms, if not permitted to pay their bills abroad, might just as well liquidate, since most of the goods sold in Rumania comes from foreign countries.

JEWISH PROBLEMS OF TODAY

The anxiety growing in Rumania with regard to elimination of Jews from employment is not the only problem now faced by Jews in that country. There is the problem of anti-Jewish discrimination in the school system; there is the problem of closing-down of Jewish communities by the local authorities, which has recently assumed a mass character. There are many other problems which would bear investigation, not only by the Board of Jewish Deputies but also by our American Jewish organizations.

The annual convention of Rumanian Jews, held Sunday in New York, paid little attention to the actual problems of the Jews in Rumania. There was more talk about other matters at this convention than about the situation of the Jews in Rumania. The impression is created that even those organizations in America which are supposed to be informed on Jewish affairs in Rumania are lacking this information. This is very regrettable in view of the authentic reports which reached New York last week from Rumania, and particularly so in the light of the meeting of the Board of Deputies held in London on the same Sunday as the Rumanian Jews held their convention in New York.