Yiddish Newspapers See Statement of Minsk Rabbis Anent Russian Religious Persecution As Having Been

The Minsk rabbis who signed the statement that the Jewish religion is not being persecuted in Soviet Russia did so, not voluntarily, but under the circumstances were forced to do it, is the opinion of both the “Jewish Morning Journal” and the “Day,” two leading Yiddish dailies of New York, expressed in editorials in their Friday issues, which are here excerpted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The editorial in Friday’s “Day” says:

“It impresses us as being above all else an extremely political document composed exclusively for Jewish-political purposes. The Jewish spiritual leaders of Russia find themselves now in a very delicate situation, as a result of the anti-Soviet campaign that has been begun throughout the world because of religious persecution in the Soviet Union. The impression has been created—rightly or wrongly—in Russia that all capitalistic countries want to use the religious issue as a pretext for war against the Soviet Union. Throughout Russia alarm bells are warning that the ‘proletarian fatherland’ is in danger, that the enemy is approaching while waving a religious flag over his head. Thus any one who helps in the campaign for religious freedom now being conducted against the Soviet government is regarded as an enemy of the Soviet fatherland.

“Can the Russian Jews now put themselves in the position of enemies of the Soviet Union? They cannot afford it! All this explains the appeal of the six rabbis who have just been freed. To say that they are consciously lying, would be equivalent to branding them not only as liars, but also as cowards. And this the leading rabbis of Russia never were, not even under the Czar. No, the Russian rabbis are neither liars nor cowards, but Jewish statesmen who consider the Jewish situation of the moment and who issue the necessary political statements which are dictated by the needs of the moment.”

“They are exactly in the same position in which the 31 rabbis of Russia found themselves two years ago when they issued a similar denial,” says S. Judson in the “Morning Journal.” “They too were forced to do it, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the Jewish community which would have to pay the penalty for their denial. Even the style in which the denial is written would seem to indicate that it comes from the same writer.

“In the denial it is stated that ‘the synagogues are being closed upon the request of the Jewish masses, and not upon the order of the Soviet governmental bodies. The government is only carrying out the wishes of the masses.’

“Is there one naive person in the whole world who will ascribe such words and such thoughts to Jewish spiritual leaders, such as rabbis have always under all regimes been? At the request of the Jewish masses no synagogue has ever been closed. The author of that statement which contains the signatures of the Minsk rabbis made a stupid mistake in thinking that with such a phrase he could bamboozle opinion, Jewish as well as non-Jewish—and the latter even more than the former.

“We can very well imagine how the six Minsk rabbis felt while signing it. They would rather have gone to jail, and perhaps even accepted a worse fate. But they have realized that at this moment they can best serve their persecuted co-religionists in that way.”