Yiddish Writers Not Admitted to International Writers’ Club

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

The question of admitting a Yiddish P. E. N. Centre into the International P. E. N. Club, of which John Galsworthy is President, was referred to a special commission because of the objection of the Polish Writers’ Club. The decision of the commission was made known to Leo Koenig, who is representing in London the interests of the applicant body, the Union of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Warsaw, in an official letter from the Secretary of the P. E. N. Club, who writes:

“The matter of whether a literature having no homogeneous territory can have a centre of the P. E. N. Club came up before the Berlin Congress. It was impossible to keep the question abstract, as telegrams had been received from Warsaw, to the effect that the Warsaw P. E. N. would not agree to the Yiddish writers forming themselves into a chapter of their Centre. The time available for discussing the matter was so short, that it was decided to appoint a small committee to consider the whole question and report to the Congress in Brussels in 1927. The committee has now been appointed and I am asked to write to you to tell you how things stand. We do not feel that we can get much further until the Jewish writers’ club in Warsaw has consulted with the Warsaw P.E.N. Centre and thrashed the matter out. As the purpose of the P.E.N. Club is to bring writers together in amity, we cannot propose to establish a Yiddish centre in Warsaw in the face of the opposition to such a step by the group most concerned.”