(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Elections to the boards of 64 Jewish communities in the border districts of Vilna and Bialystock have been ordered by the Government.
Elections for the purpose of organizing on democratic lines the Jewish communities in the frontier provinces of former Russian Poland were ordered by decree as long ago as November, 1925, being the last act of the Grabski Government before leaving office. The decree carried into effect the first two of the twelve points constituting the Polish-Jewish Agreement–to provide for the unified organization of the Jewish religious communities of the whole of Poland and to extend to the outlying districts the provisions of the Government order of 1919 dealing with the change in the organization of the Jewish communities of former Congress Poland.
Numerous Jewish organizations in the frontier districts, however, petitioned the Ministry of Public Worship to postpone the elections to the Jewish Communal organizations in their districts because of the economic distress existing there. They objected that the new Jewish Communal organizations would have the power to levy new taxes on the Jewish population, who, in their present economic position, would be unable to pay them.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.