Eleven elderly Jews, comprising the administrative committee of the Leningrad Kehillah, were sentenced today to prison and hard labor terms on the charge of having conducted illegal Kehillah activities. Some of the accused were sentenced to six and others to four months of compulsory labor.
The trial was started on the first day of Rosh Hashanah and was concluded today, causing a stir among the entire Jewish population of Leningrad, bringing into the courtroom aged, grey-bearded Jews as well as young Communists, both elements having a deep interest in the trial.
The charge of which the prisoners were found guilty stated that the Kehillah of Leningrad violated its by-laws by issuing an appeal to the population to assist in the remodelling of the Choir Synagogue which the Soviet authorities had ordered to be remodelled at a time when the Kehillah had no funds of its own. The Soviet authorities at the time notified the Kehillah that if the synagogue building is not remodelled it will be converted into a labor club. The second charge of which the prisoners were found guilty was that the Kehillah having had a lease from the Soviet authorities on a building housing a Mikveh, ritual bath, subleased three rooms in the building to an artisans’ cooperative, thus entering into business. The third charge was that the Kehillah collected funds for the purchase of a new Jewish cemetery, which is contrary to regulations as cemeteries are government controlled Among other charges were also the accusations that the Kehillah maintained connections with persons abroad receiving for Passover 80,000 kilos of (Continued on Page 4)
The accused, including Leon Rabinovitch, 77, former editor of the famous Hebrew daily in Czarist Russia, “Ha’-Melitz,” were charged with having violated article 125 of the Soviet code dealing with religious bodies, as having been active in work outside of the jurisdiction granted to the Kehillah.
The sentence will be appealed, but the Kehillah of Leningrad has, by the result of the trial been practically liquidated. This is regarded by the Jewish population as a great blow to Russian Jewry since the Leningrad Kehillah, next to the Kehillah of Moscow, was a pillar of Orthodox Jewry in Soviet Russia.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
