Warsaw Yiddish Paper Tells Leaders to Fight ‘anti-social’ Jews

The leadership of Poland’s National Union of Jewish Cultural Organizations has been sharply attacked in the Polish-Yiddish press for failing to fight against Jews engaging in various “anti-social, criminal, immoral and unethical acts.” The attack appeared in the latest issue of Die Folkshtimme, the Yiddish-language newspaper published in Warsaw, copies of which were received here.

In a long article written by Sh. Tepper, it was charged that some individual Jews were “dealing in tombstones” stolen from the Jewish cemetery in Wroclaw; that other Jews “deal” in public housing in Lignicz, Wroclaw, Lodz and Zhani; and in Lignicz, pupils in “the largest Yiddish folk school in the country” were engaging in vandalism.

“The excuse is heard,” the writer said, “that the cultural organizations cannot do anything about these acts ‘because Jews are involved.’ The cultural organizations busy themselves with arranging lectures on general political problems, on literature, and on science, But they neglect to take a stand on the living issues. Thus the organizational activities are reduced to nothing but curtains hiding the realities.”

The Folkshtimme writer demanded that the cultural organizations bring out in the open the “unhealthy, anti-social and unsocialistic acts of the criminal individuals, even if they are Jews.” The article reported that, in some of the cities where individuals had been “dealing” in tombstones and public housing, criminal proceedings have been begun by the public prosecutor. “But that is not enough,” said the writer. “It is up to the leadership of the cultural organization to expose these criminal activities, to isolate the evil-doers and to condemn them openly. We must not shield them merely because they happen to be Jews.”