Yiddish and Hebrew Languages to Be Given Recognition in Poland

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

The Ministry of the Interior is preparing a draft law to regularize the use of Hebrew and Yiddish in public life. The law will annul the ordinances which are at present in force on this question, and will make it legal to use the minority languages, including Yiddish and Hebrew in postal, telegraphic and telephonic communication, on placards and signboards, and at public meetings and performances. The Hebrew and Yiddish languages will be given equal rights with all other languages used by the national minorities in Poland.

The Yiddish language is permitted in Poland only for private conversation but not for public purposes, addressing meetings and the like, former Minister of the Interior, M. Ratajsky, declared during his period of office last year in regard to this question, when he was interrogated in Parliament by Jewish Deputies who wanted to know why the police were prohibiting public meetings which were to have been addressed in Yiddish.

Several important Jewish Conferences have met with difficulties in carrying on their proceedings because of the insistence of the authorities that the business must be conducted in Polish. At one Conference of Jewish artisans in Volhynia which was greeted by the District Governor, it was pointed out to him that the delegates would be unable to take part in the debate unless they could speak in Yiddish, the only language of which they had a command, and finally the Governor allowed Yiddish to be spoken at the Conference.

There was also a serious conflict over the question in Warsaw, where the Board of the Jewish Community which was elected in June, 1924, held no meetings for about eighteen months because it refused to agree to the demand of the Minister of Education and Public Worship that the meetings should be carried on only in Polish. Finally a special decree was issued by the Government giving the Board of the Warsaw Jewish Community the right to use at its meetings Polish, Hebrew, or Yiddish, as it pleases. The decree however, was confined to the meetings of the Warsaw Jewish Community Board and did not effect the question as a whole.

Felix Fuld, vice-president of L. Bamberger & Co., and Mrs. Fuld were appointed to the Board of Governors of the Child Welfare Committee of America, which is headed by August Heckscher.

The activities of the board are nation-wide. Each State has a council which co-operates with the board in the interests of helpless children.

Mrs. Sadie L. Abrams, wife of Municipal Court Justice Lewis A. Abrams, died Wednesday. She had taken an active part in the Ladies’ Division of the Owasco Democratic Club of the Seventeenth Assembly District and was also interested in charitable and welfare work.

Court in the Bronx Municipal Court was suspended when news of Mrs. Abrams’ death reached there.