W. J. C. Survey Analyzes Jewish Situation in 16 European Countries

A survey of Jewish life in 16 European countries since the end of World War II was made public today by the World Jewish Congress. The survey, conducted by the Institute of Jewish Affairs, presents factual date on the postwar status of the Jews in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg. Norway, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia.

In analyzing the results of the survey, Dr. Nehemia Robinson, director of the Institute, who supervised the study, says that as a result of the Nazi annihilation of Jewish leaders and intellectuals, there is today in all of Europe a dearth of Jewish intellectual and organizational leadership, “The acute lack of spiritual leaders and teachers makes it impossible to educate the small number of youth in Jewishness and to instill in them a consciousness of an attachment to Judaism, “Dr. Robinson establishes.

“There is also a little creative Jewish work owing to the disappearance of the bearers of this work, either by death or emigration,” he continued, “The two great forces in Jewish life of Europe before 1933–the traditional Jewry of Eastern Europe and the progressive Jewry of Central Europe–are no more. These developments. coupled with the smallness of the communities, lead practically everywhere in the West of Europe to a rising tide of assimilation, which cannot be expected to be stemmed by new arrivals, rich in Jewish cultural and religious traditions, because these elements were annihilated and whatever survived of them was separated from the rest of Europe by the Iron Curtain.”

The reduction in numbers, Dr. Robinson adds, “could not but seriously affect the role of the Jews in their countries of residence. Nowhere, with the possible exception of France, Italy and Denmark, do they play, whether in the economy, politics, or culture, a role even approximating that of the pre-war days. The reduced rate of Jewish creativeness and initiative affects the whole of the country no less than the Jewish community itself.”

The picture is “somewhat brighter, “Dr. Robinson asserts, in the economic field. “Despite extensive spoliation and slow and only partial recovery of spoliated assets, the Jews have by and large succeeded, in the countries this side of the Iron Curtain, in reintegrating themselves into the economy of their respective countries. “The picture is different in the East, he noted. “Restitution did not amount to much there from the very start; in addition, under the Communist system, property lost its value. Vocational readjustment meets, particularly in Rumania and Hungary, with serious difficulties and poverty among the Jews is still rampant.”