Arrest Jewish Convert on Proselytizing Charges

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

Alexander Ciovanu, a Russian who had embraced Judaism, was arrested by the police on the charge that he was carrying on Jewish missionary propaganda and persuading other Russians to embrace Judaism.

In a statement to the police, Ciovanu declared that he was the son of a Greek Orthodox family. When his parents died, he was adopted by a Jewish family who reared him. He became so attached to Judaism that he wishes to convert his former coreligionists, so that they may enjoy similar happiness, he declared.

Ciovanu faces trial under the Czaristic religious law, which is still valid in Bessarabia, and may receive a severe sentence for “diverting coreligionists from the true faith.”