Jewish Religion Trying to Find Way of Surviving Under Soviet Regime by Making Concessions Jewish Ath

The Jewish religion is making desperate efforts to adjust itself to Soviet conditions, to save itself from annihilation, the delegates complained at the first Jewish anti-religious Congress of the Apikorsim Ferband in the Soviet Union, which has just closed its session here, after adopting a resolution pledging itself to continue a ruthless campaign against the Jewish clericals and all Jewish religious institutions.

Among the methods mentioned as having been adopted by the religious Jews to adapt themselves to Soviet conditions, with a view to the preservation of the Jewish faith are the following:

In Leningrad, the Jews have decided to have mixed choirs in the synagogues, allowing the women choristers to sit together with the men; to abolish the practice of reserving special places for women in the synagogues, permitting men and women to sit together at services; to admit women to the management of congregational affairs, conceding them the vote and the right of election to the boards of management. In the smaller cities, the Jews are opening free Chedarim, open to anyone wishing to learn about the Jewish religion. The teachers are even willing to go home to the pupils, without charging any fee, so long as they have an opportunity of teaching them the Jewish faith. Itinerant preachers, ritual slaughterers and other Jewish clericals follow the Jewish colonists and other Jewish groups about wherever they go, into their new places of settlement, travelling together with them and establishing so-called movable synagogues, to be able to minister to them and keep them attached to Judaism. All the Rabbis in the Soviet Union, it was further said, are willing now to cut down the number of Jewish rites and observances, willing to sacrifice them as long as they can save the essentials of the Jewish religion.

The war against religion must go on unabated, the Yiddish Communist daily “Emess” declares in a long article today, singling out for special attack the Maggid (Preacher) of Mozir, Kantarovitoh, complaining that he has composed 200 parables of dual meaning, which he uses in his sermons, all reflecting upon the Soviet regime and counselling the people to seek consolation in the observance of religion. The Rabbi of Nakhatchkaley, in Daghestan, the “Emess”further complains, defended in a recent sermon the Mensheviks who were sentenced recently in Moscow, asserting that the big Mensheviks trail was in reality an attack upon the Jews. The “Emess”also makes an onslaught upon the Warsaw Yiddish daily “Hajnt”, for similarly alleging that the Menshevik trial was largely a Jewish affair, and that because six of the fourteen accused were Jews, the whole trial was an anti-Jewish affair.