The Government of Lithuania has taken final steps to liquidate the last remnants of the Jewish National autonomy in Lithuania. It has even gone a step further by starting court proceedings against the Executive Committee of the Jewish National Council which is already liquidated, after it was dispersed by the police a short time ago. The members of the Executive Committee are charged with belonging to an organization which was not officially legalized by the state.
Further dramatic developments occurred today in the Lithuanian Parliament with regard to Jewish communal life in the country. The Committee on Laws today rejected the bill calling for the legalization of the Jewish National Council and passed, instead, a bill introduced by the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party concerning the re-organization of the Jewish communities in the country on a congregational basis.
The purpose of this bill is to decentralize Jewish communal life in Lithuania by introducing a voluntary congregational system and depriving the local Jewish communities of the right to tax its members for Jewish religious and cultural purposes.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
