Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Situation in Roumania Growing Better, Joint Foreign Committee Hears

April 17, 1928
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency

A note of hope for improvement in the Jewish situation in Roumania and Hungary was sounded and a grievance against a League Committee for its action in the matter of the Hungarian Numerus Clausus was formulated in the report of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Jewish Deputies and Anglo-Jewish Association.

Lucien Wolf, secretary of the committee, in his report submitted yesterday to the monthly session of the Board of Jewish Deputies declared that “smooth waters have been reached, although there are still some rough spots regarding the situation in Roumania and Hungary.”

No complaints have been received recently from Roumania. In Hungary the numerus clausus is still connected with certain technical difficulties, Mr. Wolf stated. The developments in Roumania are proceeding in harmony with the Government’s pledges. Symptoms of anti-Semitic unrest are not wanting, but the Government has acted promptly and maintained peace, especially at the universities. All anti-Semitic student meetings were prohibited by the Government. Progress has also been made in reconstructive legislation dealing with the deeply rooted Jewish grievances. However, owing to the ppolitical crisis in Roumania, the situation is not without anxiety, he said.

Concerning the statements of Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Walke in the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Upper House, that the numerus clausus question before the League is now finished, Mr. Wolf said that it is very doubfful whether the League’s Committee of Three acted within the scope of its mandate. The committee appears to have acted as if having full power to negotiate understandings with offending Governments, without reference to the League’s Council. The committee’s claim to act independently of the Council does not serve public interest. It can do so still less in the cause of the national minorities, which completes the system of adjudication. Such secret action undermines the confidence of the minorities in the treaties and may cause a miscarriage of justice.

The committee’s action in declaring the Hungarian numerus clausus question closed is more inexplicable because the question was still unfinished when its decision was made. The action of the committee raises an important question of principle, he declared, on which public action immediately is necessary.

The Joint Foreign Committee communicated its grievance against the League Committee to the League and the British Foreign Office.

Morris Hillquit was the keynote speaker at the opening of the sixteenth national convention of the Socialist Party in the Manhattan Opera House on Friday night.

Rabbi Mendel Silber won a debate against Judge Ben Lindsey on Companionate Marriage in New Orleans. Judge Lindsey stated that it was his twenty-sixth dibate and that he had lost only two others.

Fire damaged the Anshe Sholom Synagogue in Philadelphia on Thursday. The damage is estibated at $3,000.

Less than an hourd before the fire was discovered the morning session of the last day of the Passover services had ended.

More than 1,200 worshipers attended the services.

The Yeshivah of Flatbush, a parochial Jewish school, was opened Sunday afternoon at the Young Israel Temple, Brooklyn.

The school has an enrollment of forty. Joel Braverman is the head of the school.

Rabbi Wolf Levy, Rabbi Harry Halpern, Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, Rabbi Morris Kufeld and Bernard Semel were the speakers.

A campaign to erect a new Jewish Social center, supplanting the present outgrown Jewish Educational League Building, was launched Sunday night at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Toledo, Ohio, in the Progress Club. Sam Davis pledged five per cent of the total raised and a minimum of $16,000 to the building fund.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement