Opposition to Jewish Colonization Work is Denounced in Ukraine

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

A rebuke to the objections to Jewish colonization in the Ukraine was made during the third session of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee meeting in Charkoff, by M. Boucenko, Secretary of the Central Executive.

M. Prichnenko, speaking on the question of land settlement in the Ukraine, suggested among other methods of improving conditions for the Ukrainian peasants the cessation of the policy of bringing Jewish land settlers to the Ukraine from other parts of the Soviet Union. He asked that the Deputies should not suspect him of anti-Semitism. It was his view he stated, that the District Executive Committees which were parcelling out the land for Jewish settlement were pursuing other ends than appeared on the surface.

“M. Prichnenko asks us not to suspect him of anti-Semitism,” M. Boucenko then declared. “He only thinks that the authorities are pursuing other ends under the cloak of the Jewish land settlement activity. Speakers from this high tribunal must be very careful in what they say. It must be made known that it is impossible to encroach on the areas of land which have been parcelled out for the national minorities who more than any other people suffered under the Czarist yoke.

“Among the Ukrainian population of 28,000,000, the Jews constitute a proportion of 6 per cent. Official figures give the number of Jews in the Ukraine as 1,780,000. Let us ask the Commissioner for Agriculture how much land has been allocated for the Jewish population? We shall find that we have given this population of 6 per cent of the total population only .33 per cent of the total land. M. Prichnenko must be made aware that the Jews are entitled to a great deal more land than has been given them.

“In the Soviet countries all citizens are equal. Jews have just as much right to participate in all branches of our economic life as the Ukrainians and Russians. We shall therefore continue to pursue our policy,” he stated.

A second court attempt by the Talmud Torah of Minneapolis. Minn., to obtain a building permit for a Hebrew school, was under way in district court, after Judge Guncar H. Nordbye issued an alternative writ of mandamus, returnable June 8, against James G. Houghton, city building inspector.

Last April the Hebrew association was refused a permit, because of easement line proceedings in the city council. The council’s establishment of a 50-foot easement line prior to the hearing on the Talmud Torah petition, restulted in the dismissal of the application by Judge Nordbye.

In its application for a second writ, made to the court after Mr. Houghton has refused to grant a permit, the Talmud Torah maintains that “neither building line easement is necessary, proper, useful or desirable for any purpose whatsoever except to delay and hinder” it in building its school. It is charged the city has no intention of prosecuting the ### to a ### nor of paying damages.