News Brief

M. Lapedatu, who was Minister of Public Worship in the Liberal Government, speaking in the Senate on the Communities Law, said that in his opinion the projected changes would do damage, instead of consolidating the position. Both the political and the religious representatives of the Jews were against the changes.

M. Vlad, the Minister of Public Worship, intervening, said: The Orthodox Jews do not wish to be included in the same community with the Spagnols, whom they regard as heretics. I have received numberless applications and complaints in this respect. The Constitution guarantees freedom to all communities. We cannot compel all Jews to join together in one community. Why are the Liberals pretending to have a monopoly for the Jewish faith?

M. Lapedatu: You will disrupt the Jewish community.

M. Vlad: The law does not prevent them all joining together if they wish.

Chief Rabbi Senator Dr. Niemerower, rising at this point, said that it was hard to fight against injustice when it was clothed in the robes of righteousness and liberty. Under the pretext of freedom for the Jews, the Government was endangering the Jewish community and its institutions. The autonomy of the Jewish communities had been recognized everywhere and in all times.

Senator Clinciu: No one denies these liberties.

Chief Rabbi Niemerower: I could show you that the majority of the Jews are indignant because this project is an attempt against the unity of the communities.

M. Vlad: Out of twenty communities, eighteen are in favor of the project.

Chief Rabbi Niemerower: In 1922 a Congress was held attended by the religious and secular representatives of all the Jewish communities. At this conference the norms were laid down of the law enacted last year.

M. Vlad: Why did you not carry out the law?

Chief Rabbi Niemerower: We did carry it out. There are only a few individuals who are not carrying it out. Because of 400 Spagnols in Transylvania who want to have a separate synagogue, we cannot break up our entire organization. No Jewish body was consulted in the drawing up of this project. It is directed against our autonomy, since you have not summoned any other Congress. Call together a Congress and let the Congress decide. The Minister of Public Worship is judging the situation according to the conditions in Transylvania. It is not for you to make laws for the Jewish faith. The unified community is traditional in Jewish life and cannot be swept aside. The Jewish temperament is individualistic, and we cannot have a law which will cause division. We Jews have no quarrel over differences of belief, but only because of the ambitions of certain people. You are undermining our thousand-year-old structure.

Senator Zipstein, a Jewish member of the Government Party: Why are the Orthodox Jews in favor of the project:

Dr. Niemerower: You are to speak only on secular questions.

Senator Zipstein: Yes, I am a Freethinker, but you are not a religious Rabbi.

Dr. Niemerower: I am a religious Rabbi. I am the Jewish spiritual adviser. Only a historic act can establish a division of Jewish rites. Our liturgical differences do not justify dividing up the Jewish community. In Poland, too, there is a unified Jewish community. You are seeking to extend throughout the country the bad conditions which obtain in Transylvania. In breaking up the Jewish communities you will destroy the Jewish cultural and welfare institutions. We Jews are always in favor of liberty, but it must be liberty, not anarchy, which cannot benefit us nor the State.

The Chief Rabbi at this point read out telegrams protesting against the bill which he had received from all over the country. All Jewish parties, he concluded, are at one on this question. We demand that the Government should withdraw the project, and should call together a Jewish Congress to deal with the question.

Senator Zipstein complained that there was too much fuss being made about this question for election purposes. All the same, he said, he, too, hoped that unified communities would be established in all places.

M. Cretziano, Roumanian Minister to Washington, was the guest of honor at a dinner Thursday night given him by the United Roumanian Jews of America and the Roumanian colony, prior to his departure for Europe on the “Ile de France.”

M. Cretziano was lauded by Bennett Siegelstein, President of the United Roumanian Jews of America for inaugurating the “entente cordiale” with the Jews. M. Cretziano expressed his thanks to the Roumanian Jewish Federation and expressed the hope that the recently established friendly relationship would continue.