Hungarian Jews breathed easier today after reading in the newspapers the text of Premier Paul Teleki’s speech to Parliament Friday night in which he had indicated that a third anti-Jewish law would be withheld indefinitely. Previous reports had given rise to the fear that new anti-Semitic legislation would be forthcoming before the end of the year.
The only bad news for Jews contained in the Premier’s speech was the announcement that a new decree would be issued to permit employers to discharge Jews performing military service as members of labor gangs. Heretofore the Military Service Act prevented employers from discharging Jewish as well as Gentile employees called up for “temporary” military service. Count Telex said, however, that the decree would be so worded as to prevent “unwarranted cruelty.”
The premier’s speech even contained a piece of good news for Jews–his announcement that Jews would be allowed to continue working on the editorial staff of the Pester Lloyd in violation of present anti-Jewish legislation.
Count Telex said that “in view of the ignorance of foreign languages” on the part of Gentiles he, had “come to the conclusion that we must renounce application of anti-Jewish measures” in the case of the Pester Lloyd, German-language organ of the Foreign Office.
The Premier admitted that of 42 editorial members of the Foreign Office mouthpiece 16 were unexempted Jews and five exempted Jews (war veterans and families thereof). The Pester Lloyd is the only newspaper in Hungary on whose editorial staff Jews are permitted to number more than six per cent.
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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.
