J.D.B News Letter

(By our manchester correspondent)

The Anglo-Jewish Association with its coworkers on the Joint Foreign Committee have been able to adopt an entirely new line in their dealings with foreign countries, declared Leonard G. Montefiore, president of the association, at the biennial provincial general meeting held here.

In the past they had had to appeal to backward nations to protect their Jewish minorities on grounds of charity, he stated, but now Jewish rights were legally recognized and guaranteed by the League of Nations. The important thing to observe was that the Jews of Eastern Europe had rights, although they were not always observed. Jews were not the only persecuted minority. The Baptists in Roumania had also appealed to their coreligionists in every part of the world to help them.

Contrasting Roumania’s treatment of the Jews with that meted out to them 30 years ago, Mr. Montefiore said that in dealing with Roumania one had to bear in mind that she was 100 years behind the times. She was still a medieval country, but even there, some improvements could be diseerned. In times gone by Roumania snapped her fingers at foreign protests but today she was sensitive to foreign opinion as could be seen by the manner in which she was dealing with the outrages which occurred at Oradeomare.

The Anglo-Jewish Association were sharcholders in the Jewish Colonization Association, Mr. Montefiore proceeded. Referring to their colonization work in Russia, he said, there were always crities, but they over-looked that for the same amount of money they could settle three times the number of families as in the Argentine. Palestine or elsewhere. The colonies in South Russia were very prosperous and the work was extending.

M. I. Florentin, leader of the Sephardic Community in Manchester, drew the attention of the executive officers of the Anglo-Jewish Association to a grievance of Salonica Jews and for which so far they had failed to secure redress. At the Lycee Francias more than 90 per cent of the pupils were Jewish. There were over 500 of them. The teachers were priests and the children were compelled to attend school on the Sabbath. He hoped the matter would be taken up vigorously, because the parents were made to pay heavily for the tuition their children got and the schools could be profitably transferred to the Jewish community.

Neville Laski complained that although the Sephardic Community in Manchester was the second largest Sephardic Community in the United Kingdom they had done very little to assist the Anglo-Jewish Association. The majority of the local Sephardim came from those areas where the Anglo-Jewish Association was carrying on its beneficent work. They shipped most of their goods to the East, whence their profits came; in spite of their old associations, they gave the least assistance to the work of the Anglo-Jewish Association. It was too much for him to hope that the president of the Sephardic congregation would help them.

For fifty years they had had to beg for voluntary contributions, Mr. Montefiore, said in reporting on the educational work of the association. The first fruits of their work was the Evelina de Rothschild school in Jerusalem which absorbed nearly half the income of the Anglo-Jewish Association. There were at present 550 children in the school, who came from the poorest homes. The children were making excellent progress. In Bagdad they had had an offer to take over the Sabbath school and the Anglo-Jewish Association appealed for assistance to enable them to do it. Mr. and Mrs. Brotman had been appointed educational advisers to the Iraq community. In spite of many hardships they were doing very well. The ecclesiastical and lay leaders there did not always agree. Only a few weeks ago, the Iraq Chief Rabbi and the lay heads exchanged letters in which they dismissed each other from their posts, but both still retained their positions.

The Bene Israel School in Bombay under the leadership of Miss S. Rubin was doing a great work in educating the children of the Bene Israel in the tenets of Judaism. Were it not for the Anglo-Jewish Association the Bene Israel, who were looked upon with a good deal of suspicion by Indian Jews, would have no assistance at all. The association had cut the ground irom under the feet of the missionaries and great improvements were taking place in the status of the Bene Israel.