The Union of Rumanian Jews for Bukowina Province, during its visit to Czernowitz, submitted to the government cabinet a memorandum in which it presents its position on the new law for the protection of national labor.
The memorandum deals with the question of the economic distress of the Jews in Bukowina towns. In the economic crisis, which has hit Bukowina hardest, it says, Bukowina Jews suffer most. Distress and unemployment are rampant. Bukowina is the most impoverished part of Rumania, and the Jews are the poorest of the poor, especially in the towns, where the intellectuals are utterly destitute. It is therefore essential that their right to work should not be interfered with, and that nothing should be done to endanger their citizenship equality under the projected law for the protection of national labor, which would conflict with the Constitution.
The Bukowina Jews belong to the autochthonous population of this country, says the memorandum. Part of them trace their descent from the old Dacian Jews. Even those Jews who came into Bukowina from the West and East, after the Austrian occupation of the territory, are settled in this country for 160 years, and have contributed by their work to the growth and the prosperity of the country. Their descendants are in no case “aliens.”
When Bukowina returned to Rumania, the Jews of Bukowina entered the new State as full citizens, and dedicated themselves to the interests of the new motherland.
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