Tells of Tragic Plight of Far Eastern Jews at Closing Session of Rabbinical Parley

The tragic situation of the Jews of the Far East, particularly those of Manchuria, China and Northern India was graphically described at the closing session of the 13th annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly by Rabbi Louis Levitzky of Wilkesbarre, who has just returned from a tour of the Far East. He found only one rabbi in China and reported that anti-Semitism, hitherto unknown in China, has been introduced there by Russian monarchist emigres.

Rabbi Levitzky said that the Jews of the Far East are disunited and intermarry with the natives. Most of the Jews there are Russian refugees and Rabbi Levitzky painted their status as one of social, economic and spiritual isolation from the Jewish world.

Before the convention closed it elected the following executive council: Rabbis Philip Alstat, Max Drob, Louis Finkelstein and Israel Goldstein, and Professors Morris Levine and Mordecai Kaplan of New York, Rabbi Alter Landesman of Brooklyn, Rabbis Mortimer J. Cohen and Max D. Klein of Philadelphia, Rabbi Elias Margolis of Mt. Vernon, Rabbi Max Arzt of Scranton, Rabbi Hyman Rabinowitz of Sioux City, Rabbi David Aronson of Minneapolis, Rabbi Morris Silverman of Hartford, Rabbi Louis Schwefel of Washington, Rabbi Louis Epstein of Boston, Rabbi Solomon Goldman of Chicago and Rabbi Paul Chertoff of Brooklyn.

The last symposium of the convention was one on “The Community Center and the Synagogue” introduced by Rabbi Alexander Basil of the Schiff Center, Bronx, and Rabbi Harry Davidowitz, Cleveland.

Resolutions unanimously adopted expressed gratification with the recently achieved union in the ranks of American Zionism and pledged cooperation to the Z. O. A. and urged congregations to have nothing to do with self-styled and unordained rabbis. Next year’s convention is to be held in one of the larger cities, in the Spring and will be open to the public.