Jewish Congress Study Shows Encouraging Gains for Jewry in 1954

Encouraging achievements were chalked up by Jews in many countries during 1954 in the fields of religion, culture and education as well as in the rehabilitation of survivors of Nazism, but there still remain disturbing trends toward assimilation and anti-Jewish tensions in such areas as the Arab and Iron Curtain countries, according to a study conducted by the World Jewish Congress and made public here today.

The study notes that the judicial persecution of Jews in Rumania, Egypt, Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany caused alarm in Jewish circles. Other events occurring in the Arab countries, such as the cancellation of citizenship and other discriminatory measures in Iraq, and the sale of Jewish community assets in Iraq and Syria, were also deeply disturbing. The struggle by Arab nationalists for greater autonomy in the French dependencies in North Africa witnessed outbreaks of violence entailing loss of Jewish life and property.

Communist hostility toward the Jewish religion and Zionism in no way diminished during 1954, despite the fact that a tiny number of Jews were permitted to migrate from Iron Curtain countries and the Soviet Union to Israel. While Arab countries were threatening Jewish lives and property, some important leaders in North Africa voiced their hopes for amity between Jews and Moslems. Among these were the Bey of Tunis, his new Prime Minister Tahar ben Ammar, the Pasha of Marakesh and the leaders of the Istiqlal Movement in French Morocco.

West Germany generally maintained a “correct” attitude toward its tiny Jewish community, the survey observes, but a number of incidents pointed to the need for continuing watchfulness. Among these incidents were anti-Jewish demonstrations at Berlin’s Sportspalast last year, desecration of Jewish cemeteries, and the final liquidation of the de-Nazification program. West Germany’s implementation of the compensation program to surviving Nazi victims continued, although at “an inadequate pace,” and negotiations with the Austrian Federal Government concerning indemnification were postponed indefinitely because of the “intransigent attitude” of the Austrians.

JEWISH POPULATION INCREASED IN CANADA; 200 NEW CONGREGATIONS IN U. S.

The year 1954 saw the closing of the last Jewish DP camps in West Germany and Austria, the survey declares. In the whole of Western Europe only some 17,000-20,000 Jews were registered for emigration, and the main centre of prospective migration shifted to the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The gradual evacuation of small and scattered Jewish groups continued, with the Jewish population of Calcutta now reduced by one-half. Ancient Jewish settlements in Malabar and Madras have been reduced by emigration; and the total Jewish population in China has dwindled to less than 800.

The main areas of absorption of Jewish migrants continued to be Israel, the United States and Canada. Montreal and Toronto now contain the second and third largest Jewish communities in the British Commonwealth following immediately after London. Canada has increased its total Jewish population by twenty-one percent since 1946.

Throughout the world, a considerable number of synagogues were built or rededicated following reconstruction. The example of the American Jewish Community, which built some 200 new congregations, was followed on a lesser scale in France, Italy, the Benelux nations and Germany. The U.S. Armed Forces dedicated Jewish places of worship in two countries where synagogues had never before existed: Korea and Greenland.

Surveys of religious life in the United States revealed that Judaism is the third largest religious denomination in this country. However, despite encouraging trends, “simultaneous assimilationist developments took a heavy toll, and disturbing conditions have been found not only in small and isolated communities, but also in this country, Great Britain and Canada,” the survey asserted.

To counteract these trends, efforts aimed at stimulating Jewish education and culture continued in many parts of the world, the report added. “A network of Jewish educational institutions, from kindergarten to high school, is gradually being built up in the Western Hemisphere, North and South Africa and Australia. Notable work in Jewish education has taken place particularly in Canada, the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, while in French and Spanish Morocco and in Tunisia, local Jewries have expanded their educational facilities.”

On the level of higher education, new seminaries were established in Johannesburg and Istanbul, and a new teachers’ college in Eritrea. In the United States, Brandeis University established its Graduate School and Yeshiva University added the Einstein College for Medicine and a women’s college, the survey reports.

The study, which summarizes events which occurred during 1954 and presents a month-by-month, country-by-country chronicle of events in Jewish life, is the first section of the three-part survey. Part two is a discussion of the activities of the World Jewish Congress on behalf of Jewish communities and organizations in 65 nations. Part three, a study of anti-Semitism during 1954, is expected to be issued shortly.