Kishineff Jews Protest Against Ruinous Taxation Project

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The policy of the Roumanian authorities in Bessarabia to tax the Jewish merchants out of existence met with a determined opposition on the part of the Jewish representatives in Kishineff, headed by Rabbi Zirelson, the aged leader of Bessarabian Jews.

When the municipal council yesterday took up a new project for city taxation, the Jewish councillors opposed the adoption of the bill and declared that they would filibuster any attempt to pass the bill.

Following the reading of the bill by Mayor Theadorescu, the Jewish councillor, Gendrik, delivered an address in which he stated that the new taxation project will ruin the town. Rabbi Zirelson, in an impassioned speech, exclaimed ironically: “Happy Bessarabia! In the last few years martial law and great distress have been brought to it. Now it will have a new taxation which will add poverty. We demand bread and freedom. Down with absolutism and dictatorship!”

The Roumanian members of the Council clamored for a withdrawal of the rabbi’s criticism. Rabbi Zirelson, however, declared, unmoved, that he spoke in the name of justice. Pandemonium broke out and the mayor summoned the police to clear the hall.

The anti-Semitic press now demands that measures be taken against the “Jewish provocation” and urges that Rabbi Zirelson be excluded from the city council.

The incident in the Kishineff City Council was misinterpreted by the Viennese newspaper, “Sechs Uhr Blatt.” In its report, the newspaper confused the city council with the Jewish communal board, reporting that the incidents had taken place in the Kehillah Council and that the Council had demanded the resignation of Rabbi Zirelson.