Chief Rabbi Weber, President of the Orthodox Congregations of Czecho-Slovakia and one of the leaders of the Agudath Israel World Organisation, and of its Rabbinical Council, has been fatally injured in a motor-bus accident.
Chief Rabbi Weber figured a few years ago in a sensational trial, together with Rabbi Horowitz, now Rabbi of the Orthodox Community of Frankfurt, when they brought a libel action against Dr. Margulies, one of the Zionist leaders in Czecho-Slovakia, on account of an accusation made to the effect that they had received subsidies from the Government for the purpose of putting up Agudist candidates in the Parliamentary elections to split the Jewish vote and prevent the Zionist Jewish Party securing the election of the candidates. Finally an arrangement was reached between the parties and the matter was withdrawn from the court.
Rabbi Weber was in London in December 1928, and in the course of an interview with the J.T.A. at the time, he said that until recently there had been two Jewish parties in Czecho-Slovakia, the Agudists and the Zionists. But recently, he went on, there has been a union of forces, which has resulted in co-operation in the Parliamentary elections, and a neutral person headed the joint list.
Rabbi Weber said that he presided over an organisation which comprised 130 central communities with 400 branches, with an organised membership of nearly 150,000. No less than 3,000 young men attended the Yeshiboth of Slovakia, and traditional Judaism was in a flourishing condition, comparing most favourably with that in the provinces of Moravia and Bohemia where the situation was exceptionally sad.
There is no Jewish problem in Czecho-Slovakia, he went on. The best solution of the Jewish problem is that none should exist, he said.
During his visit Chief Rabbi Weber was given a reception by the London Keren Hatoreh Committee. The late Rabbi Dr. Victor Schonfeld, who presided, said that Czecho-Slovakian Orthodoxy had shown an example to the orthodox Jewry of the world. They were organised together in one great body, and in this way traditional Judaism was flourishing in the country. Chief Rabbi Weber, he went on, had been instrumental in organising orthodoxy after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian State and the Union of Orthodox Communities of which he was the head had now become one of the bulwarks of our faith in the Diaspora.
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