Thirty-four per cent of the Jews in Soviet Russia are factory workers; thirty-one per cent, office workers; fourteen per cent, artisans, and twelve per cent are peasants. These statistics are incorporated in a survey of the Jewish situation in Russia by Joshua Kunitz, published in the current issue of New Masses. The remainder is divided between professional and miscellaneous occupations.
The writer finds “that seventeen years of proletarian rule have finally solved the eternal Jewish question.”
“The Soviet government has established a series of Jewish theatres in Moscow, Kharkov, Minsk, Kiev, Odessa, and is now building the first Jewish theatre in Biro-Bidjan,” Kunitz continues.
“It is absolutely untrue that the Jewish religion or any other religion is prohibited in the Soviet Union. Of course the Jewish religion is not being encouraged, just as every other religion in the Soviet Union is not being encouraged,” the article goes on to say.
Zionist propaganda is prohibited, but Yiddish papers and the study of the language are encouraged, Mr. Kunitz finds, and the last vestiges of anti-Semitism are being uprooted in an area extending over one-sixth of the land surface of the globe.
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.
