Bulgarian Jews Discuss Their Communities

The reenforcement of Bulgarian Jewish communities, the general status of Jewish schools, the Hebraization of such schools and the participation of Bulgarian Jewry in the European Congress of National Minorities were among the topics discussed here recently at a conference of sixty delegates representing the Jews of Bulgaria.

The delegates do not represent separate communities. They are elected by active voting on the part of Bulgarian Jews and Jews who are citizens of other states but are resident in this country. The election is ordered by the Ministry of Religious Education and Instruction, and the delegates receive a three-year mandate. The present group has so far been called to two conferences, the first in 1932.

RATIFICATION AWAITED

Statutes worked out by the first convention in 1920 for the league of Jewish communities are still to be ratified by the state, Such ratification is, from the Jewish point of view, urgent, as Bulgaria has no law which would facilitate the disposition of Jewish religious and community affairs.

The question of participation in the forthcoming World Jewish Congress was not discussed as such, since Bulgarian Jewry. which considers itself a part of world Jewry, regards it as its self-evident duty to take part in this general Jewish convocation. The only step taken was that of investing the central consistory with the right to name delegates to the world congress.

Provision was made for the first steps toward the opening of a Jewish high school and the installation of courses for training school directors.

The five Zionist Revisionist delegates staged a demonstration, shortly before the last point on the program was discussed, by leaving the conference. They proposed a resolution against the mandatory power ## and in favor of the Jewish State.