Salonica Jews Will Not Boycott Coming Parliamentary Elections: Wanted Separate Jewish Electoral Coll

The Jews of Salonica have no intention of boycotting the Parliamentary elections which are taking place in September, as has been suggosted in a New York paper recently, as a protest against the separate Jewish Electoral College which was set up in 1923. The General Council of the Jewish Community of Salonica considered at its last two meetings this question of the Jewish electoral college. At the first meeting it appointed a delegation which proceeded to Athens to demand the abolition of the separate Jewish electoral college. The second meeting heard the report of the delegation, which stated that it had been received by the Prime Minister, M. Venizelos, and had explained to him the views of the great majority of the Jews of Salonica on the subject, and the unanimous views of the General Council of the Jewish Community that the separate electoral college should be abolished. M. Venizelos replied that he would propose to Parliament that the Jewish electoral college should be abolished for the 1936 elections, but it was impossible to abolish it in time for the next elections in September.

The General Council of the Jewish Community thereupon decided to continue its efforts towards the immediate abolition of the separate Jewish electoral college, but there was no question of advising the Jewish population to abstain from voting, because the election would be valid even if there was only one vote cast, that of the candidate himself. At one of the previous elections there was an almost unanimous movement among the Jews in favour of abstaining from voting, and nevertheless the election was declared valid, with only 25 votes cast out of the total number of 13,000 Jewish electors.