London Jewish Board Takes Optimistic View

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

An optimistic view of the Jewish situation in Eastern Europe is taken in the 1926 report of the Board of Jewish Deputies.

Outside Roumania, the report states, the improvement in the situation of the Jews, noted in last year’s report, has continued. In Poland there has been great economic suffering, due mainly to the serious trade depression which has reigned in that country, and which has affected the Jews more severely than the rest of the population because of their concentration in the towns and their overwhelming employment in mercantile pursuits. Politically, however, the work of conciliation, inaugurated in 1925 by Count Skrzynski, has been continued by the present Government, and although all the Jewish grievances have not yet been met, very substantial progress has been made towards a solution of the Jewish question. In this happy evolution the Joint Foreign Committee has played a useful part.

Even in Hungary, where for years past the outlook has been almost as gloomy as in Roumania, the past year has been marked by a subsidence of conflict and persecution. While it is true that no legislative steps have been taken to repeal or amend the Numerus Clausus Law, and that the old quotas of Jewish students under the Law are still maintained, its oppressive character has been diminished by a circular of the Minister of Public Instruction suppressing a former Circular under which the Jews were treated as a nationality in the sense of the Numerus Clausus, and not as a religions community. This is a distinct triumph for the Case represented to the League of Nations by the Joint Foreign Committee. It opens a way for the total exemption of the Jews from the operation of the Numerus Clausus, and there can be little doubt that this will be recognized officially with the subsidence of the anti-Semitic passions which gave rise to the Law. In these circumstances the Joint Foreign Committee has not pressed its advantage, but it will not fail to renew its campaign in Geneva should the necessity arise.

Among the minor questions which have engaged the attention of the Committee, the report mentions the Disabilities of the Jews in Persia, and the threatened anti-Sheehita Legislation in Norway. The action of the Committee on both these questions, it says, was completely successful. In the one case satisfactory assurances were received from the Persian Government, and in the other the threatened legislation was withdrawn.

Samuel Blumenfield was elected president of the New York Chapter of Avukah, Student Zionist Organization of America. S. Juretsky was chosen vice-president; Rose Mazell, secretary; and Dr. Morris Dreyfus, treasurer.

Rabbi Alexander Lyons, of the Eighth Avenue Temple, Brooklyn, N. Y., sailed yesterday on the President Roosevelt for Europe.