The establishment of a united Jewish front in Roumania for the coming elections was discussed at a meeting held here last night at the home of Mr. Lazar Margulies, member of the Supreme Economic Council of Roumania, who is a prominent Zionist, and a member of the Jewish Agency Council.
Ex-Deputy Dr. W. Filderman, President of the Union of Roumanian Jews, and ex-Senator Horia Carp, President of the Bucharest Section of the Union of Roumanian Jews, represented the Union of Roumanian Jews, and ex-Senator Dr. Theodor Fischer, President of the Jewish Party, Dr. Bauberger, Vice-President, and ex-Deputy Dr. Samuel Singer, represented the Jewish Party.
Dr. Filderman, after emphasising the extremely difficult situation of Roumanian Jewry, said that they must reckon with a considerable increase in the antisemitic vote as a result of the political developments in Germany and for other reasons. The work of the Jewish politicians must be to prevent the rapid growth of the antisemitic movement. At a time like this, when Jewish economic existence is menaced, they had no right to quarrel among themselves about doctrines or labels. It was essential that all Jews in Roumania should, in view of the antisemitic danger, constitute a united front.
With the political situation what it is, Dr. Filderman went on, the National Peasants’ Party as the Government of the day, was in a position to help the Jews effectively in combating this danger. Both Jewish organisations, he said, should therefore propose to the National Peasants’ Party an election pact under the following conditions:
The Government to pledge itself to apply rigorously the provisions of the penal code and of the law for the protection of public order. Proper application of these legal provisions, Dr. Filderman said, will make it impossible for the antisemitic groups to be successful. Czecho-Slovakia, which had prohibited the swastika, had shown how a State could counter antisemitic agitation.
The important thing, Dr. Filderman said, was to combat antisemitism, and other matters, like the number of Jewish representatives who would be returned to Parliament, and the rest of the points in their programmes, must be put in the background.
Dr. Theodor Fischer, in his reply, said that the Jewish Party could accept such a programme on condition that the present negotiations would go further, towards an agreement with regard to the future organisation of the whole of Roumanian Jewry.
He proposed that the Union of Roumanian Jews should continue to exist, but that it should not engage in questions of day-to-day politics, which would be left to the Jewish Party, and should confine itself to questions of general Jewish interest. Militant political activity should be conducted by the Jewish Party according to a joint agreement between the two groups.
The members of the Jewish Party, he said, would leave to the Union the role of an organisation to protect rights and to bear back antisemitic attacks, on similar lines to the Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith. This would require, he added, that all the members of the Union of Roumanian Jews would have to join the Jewish Party.
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.
