New Jewish Outlcok in Roumania: Government Agrees to Jewish Programme of Demands in Concluding Pact

The agreement concluded with the Jorga Government by the Union of Roumanian Jews embodies the same programme of conditions as the agreement entered into by the Union in 1927 with the Liberal Government, headed by the late Jonel Bratianu.

Under the agreement, the Union of Roumanian Jews will have eight seats in the new Parlisment, five in the Chamber and three in the Senate. Dr. Filderman, the President of the Union of Roumanian Jews, Dr. Ettinger, and Dr. Bercowitz will be the candidatos in the Old Kingdom. The candidates in the new Provinces have not yet been decided on.

M. Argetoianu, who was instrumental in bringing about the pact between the Government and M. Duca, the leader of the Liberal Party, and who is a good friend of the Union of Roumanian Jews, took over to-day the post of Minister of the Interior. His occupation of this Ministry, which makes him responsible for the preservation of order in the country, is hailed with satisfaction by the Jewish representatives.

THE PROGRAMME OF JEWISH CONDITIONS

The conditions under which the Union of Roumanian Jews entered into the election pact with the Liberal party in 1927 was based on the acceptance of the programme of the Union, which pledged the Liberal Party to carry through Parliament a law to regulate the position of the Jewish communities (the Liberal Government enacted on November 3rd., 1928 a law legalising for the first time the Jewish Community, which since 1920 has existed without being an officially recognised body. On November 8th., the Liberal Government fell and was succeeded by the Maniu National Peasant Government, which adopted a reguiation changing the Jewish Community from a religious and social organisation as provided under the Liberal Government’s law to a purely religious body. Following the united protests of the entire Jewish population, the law was held up, and till the present day there is no officially recognised Jewish Community in Roumania), to grant public rights to the Jewish schools, to give Government subsidies to the Jewish religious communities and to the Jewish schools, and to take measures to put a stop to the antisemitic agitation in the country.

On the conclusion of the pact, the Union issued a manifesto to the Jewish population, in which it said that, taking into consideration the fact that the Union wishes to bring about the settlement of certain problems, like that of the Jewish Communities and the Jewish schools, and that these problems are not in contradiction to the security and the consolidation of the State, whose earth we Jews have sanctified with the blood of our ancestors and our children in three terrible wars, and taking into consideration the fact that the Liberal Party has declared that it condemns equally with us the anti-Jewish agitation which is causing friction between citizens, and that it will always settle the problems of interest to us within the limits of the laws, and in accordance with the interests of the country, the Central Committee of the Union has decided to call upon the whole of the Jewish population of Greater Roumania to vote in the elections to Parliament and the Senate for the lists of the Liberal Party.

The late Mr. Lucien Wolf, in his report presented to the Jewish Board of Deputies at the time of the conclusion of the pact, said that the new Government was apparently determined to maintain order, and to that end had concluded a friendly understanding with the Jewish Community.

Notwithstanding the pact, the anti-Jewish excesses at Oradeo Mare broke out the same year, but following the fierce protests made by Dr. Filderman and the other representatives of the Union in Parliament, the Government took drastic action, by imprisoning over 100 students who were found guilty of participation in the excesses, suspending abut 360 students from the University, dismissing or transferring civil and military authorities who had failed in their duties, compensating the Jewish victimes, and officially condemning the attitude and actions of the antisemitic students, and closing down their Organisation.

The pact which we concluded with the Union of Roumanian Jews was based on a programme which our Government carried into effect honestly while we were in power, M. Duca, the Minister of the Interior at that time, who is now the leader of the Liberal Party, which by a pact with the Jorga Government will have 80 seats in the new Parliament, said in an interview with the London Editor of the J.T.A. last summer.

In contradiction to the Jewish National Party (which with the members of the Jewish Parliamentary Club in the last Parliament has formed an All-Roumanian Minority Party to contest the for thooming Parliamentary elections) the Union of Roumanian Jews, Dr. Filderman explained to the London Editor of the J.T.A., is not a Jewish Party, but a defensive organisation for protecting Jewish rights. It does not recognise a Jewish nationality in Rumania. It holds that the Jews are Roumanian citizens, but demands that the rights of the Jewish citizens should be respected, that the Jewish Communities and Jewish schools should be recognised, and that antisemitic disturbances should not be permitted. Our objection to a Jewish Party, he added, is that the Jew is not only a Jew, but also an individual, a citizen, and a member of a class, with differing views and outlooks and interests. If, for instance, all the Jews of the country joined together in one party, the Jewish Labour element withdrawing themselves from the general Labour movement, the Jewish employers from the general interests of the employing class, etc., they would harm their own interests and would inevitably find themselves clashing inside the Jewish Party. The Union of Roumanian Jews, therefore, has no common policy binding its members, apart from the defence of Jewish rights, and accordingly, in includes both non-Zionists and Zionists like Chief Rabbi Niemirover and ex-Senator Horia Carp.