Polish Jewish Emigration Restricted; Rumanian Jews Have Shortage of Religious Leaders

Polish Jews are being subjected to emigration restrictions and Rumanian Jews are being threatened by a shortage of religious leaders, the Sacramento Jewish Federation reports in the June issue of its Jewish Federation Bulletin. There were an estimated 7,000 Jews in Poland in January, around 1,000 having emigrated last year, the Bulletin says, adding that more would have left but for “visa refusals, on grounds of ‘State interest.'” Of the 7,000 total, it is said, “perhaps 2,000” are “of emigrable age”–though not all may want to leave–and the other 5,000 are over 60 years old, “mostly poor, sick or handicapped” and “in continuous need of assistance.” Those 5,000, the Bulletin said, will probably stay in Poland, “barring new political upheavals and another resurgence of ‘anti-Zionist’ propaganda.” (According to encyclopedias, there were nearly 3 million Jews in Poland in 1929. In 1958 there were an estimated 30,000.)

In Rumania, the Federation Bulletin continues, Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen “has been increasingly concerned for some time about the diminishing number of trained personnel, especially Shochtim and the Hebrew teachers needed for the children’s programs.” The “missing generation” that was eradicated by the Nazis “make itself felt ever more painfully,” the report says, since “not only were a whole generation’s functionaries wiped out but also the Jewish institutions which trained them.” The Bulletin notes that less than half of the 900,000 prewar Jewish population survived the Holocaust and that three-quarters of those moved to Israel. “Thus,” it concludes, “the remnant of Rumanian Jewry never had a chance to replenish its leaders and functionaries, especially with well over half of those remaining now elderly and often ailing.”