The newlyelected board of the Warsaw Jewish community may be dissolved and a government commissioner appointed to conduct the affairs of the community, the Jewish press here suggests today. The first two meetings of the board, it is pointed out, have shown that it is impossible for either of the two opposing sides, the Agudists or the Zionists, to obtain a stable majority to enable it to form an administration to carry on the affairs of the community.
The two meetings of the board held since the elections have both been of a stormy character. At the second meeting, held on June 29, when the new executive was elected, Agudists and Zionists several times came to blows, and some of the incidents, it was said, may be followed by legal action. The new executive consists of eight Agudists, four Zionists, two Mizrachists and one non-partisan.
The Warsaw Jewish community, the largest in Europe, has had a chequered existence since its board has been a democratically elected body. The two opposing sections, the Zionists and the Agudists, have always been more or less equal in numbers, and deadlocks have consequently been frequent. The suggestion that the community should be dissolved and a government commissioner appointed to conduct affairs has been made on previous occasions.
The very first meeting of the kehillah after the elections in 1924 broke up in disorder as a protest against the insistence of the government that the proceedings should be conducted in Polish. No meeting was held for 19 months until February, 1926, when permission was given for the proceedings to be conducted in Polish, Yiddish or Hebrew. Deadlocks occurred constantly and on one occasion the budget could not be passed for months, so that the executive finally resigned until the deadlock was broken as the result of a compromise between the Zionists and the Agudists. Shortly before the recent elections, the community board again became unworkable and it was suggested that the government commissioner should take over its affairs.
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.
