Feeling Runs High as Violation of Elementary Rights is Attacked and Defended; New Form of Discrimination Termed as Intolerable as Old (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Feeling ran high in the Hungarian house of Representatives as it continued on Friday the long drawn out debate on the Government bill, proposing to modify, though not to change in substance, the numerus clausus law barring Jewish students from the Hungarian universities and colleges.
Deputy Wollf, leader of the Christian party, defended the numerus clausus law as it exists today. The Jews cannot be considered a unit, he stated. The teeth of the numerus clausus law are directed not against the Hungarian Jews, but against those Jews who are not Magyarized.
These remarks called forth the protests of Jewish deputies and a tumult ensued. Deputy Brody, Democrat, a Jew, contended that the numerus clausus question was a constitutional issue. The elementary principles of liberty are now being suppressed in Hungary, he exclaimed. The new form of the numerus clausus law now proposed by the Government is just as intolerable as the former. The creation of a caste system will result in grave injustice since, according to the stipulation of the bill, the students will have to be considered not on their merit but on the class and occupation of their parents. For instance, the children of parents who are in the free professions, will not be accepted at all.
Jenoe Gal, Democrat, leader of the assimilationist Jewish group, protested against considering the numerus clausus question from a Jewish point of view. There is no Jewish question in Hungary, he declared. He quoted statements issued by evangelical bishops and deputies, who are members of the Bethlen party, against the numerus clausus. It was, he stated, to the credit of Hungarian Jews that foreign intervention in this matter was rejected. Revolutionary conditions still being in existence, the Government is unable to suppress student strikes, Deputy Gal then spoke at length on the Hungarian students who are compelled to study abroad. These youths are the flower of Hungary and its best patriots he stated.
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