Pogroms or Excesses? Rabbi Ebner Issues Statement on Attitude of Roumanian Jews
What can be regarded as a statement of the position of Jews in Roumania on the reports published by the press abroad on the anti-Jewsih excesses is contained in today’s issue of the “Ostjuedishe Zeitung”, Jewsih Orgna of Czernowitz, which is under the editorship of Rabbi Meyer Ebner, noted Roumanian Jewish leader. The statement of the “Ostjuedische Zeitung”, headed “The Anti-Semitic Excesses in the Light of the Truth”, is a result of the demands of the “Indreptarea”, organ of the Roumanian government, of the “Vitorul” and other papers that the Jews of Roumania deny the reports published abroad regarding the excesses. The “Ostjuedische Zeitung” declares:
“As a Jewish organ which always represents the view that the interests of Roumanian Jewry are closely bound up with the interests of the Roumanian state we have declared on a number of occasions–the first time on Sept. 2, 1924, in our issue Number 256–that the foreign papers, chiefly the reports regarding developments in Roumania. During the recent weeks we have again declared our attitude on the excesses in Roumania. In our leading articles, ‘Conventional Luegen’, ‘Weises Verstehen’ and ‘Wahren Feinde’, we clearly and plainly declared that the exaggerations are not in our interests, and we categorically denounced them.
“We see in the description of these anti-Jewish excesses as ‘pogroms’ an exaggeration, because since the pogroms in Russia which created the horribel word, the expression is used to signify the massacring of large numbers of Jews by organized bands. Such massacres (pogroms) have not taken place in Roumania.
“What has taken place recently in Roumania is sad enough, and it was also reported by all unprejudiced papers in Roumania. There has been aside from a number of individual incidents in the Bucharest University, the mistreatment of Jews in Kishineff and Kalaras by the students returning from their congress in Jassy, the organized attack on a Jewish ball in Clausenberg, and also the attacks on Jewish passengers in moving trains and at various stations, especially in Marasesti, the attacks on Jewish passersby in the streets of Bucharest on Dec. 10 and on the following days, the pillaging and ruining of Jewish property in Bucharest and other places, etc.
“The fact is that the government officials did not take sufficient measures to protect those attacked and that those who perpetrated the excesses, even when they were arrested were immediately released without any punishment, so that in the minds of a certain part of the student body the opinion was created that Jews could be attacked with impunity.
“All the liberal minded papers in Roumania have condemned this magnanimity on the part of the government toward the perpetrators of the excesses and demanded that energetic measures be taken against all violators of the law. The papers also declare that so long as the government will not take the necessary steps to punish the criminals, they regard the promises of the government to maintain peace and order as insufficient and demand further that the government should at last take the excesses seriously.
“This is the true situation, without exaggerations and without sparing anyone,” the “Ostjuedische Zeitung” states.
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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.
