Authorities’ Action to Check Anti-Semitic Wave Also Reported (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The occurrence of anti-Jewish acts in several centers of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics and the attempts of the local authorities to check what might be viewed as a wave of anti-Semitism leading to violence are reported here by the Soviet press.
An investigation commission appointed by the authorities at Voronezh, following the suicide of the Jewish student Maisel, revealed that the University of Voronezh is what was termed an anti-Semitic nest. Two of the students guilty of fomenting the agitation, Piatnitsky and Timofeiev, were arrested. Some of the professors conducted an open anti-Semitic campaign in the University, flunking Jewish students, the commission has found.
Reports from White Russia reveal further acts of anti-Semitism. In the district of Homel, hooligans persecuted members of a Jewish agricultural settlement. The fields were raided by the hooligans who, when sentenced by the local court to two months jail, appealed to a higher court which released them despite their admission of guilt.
Two Communist youths were ousted from the Communist youth club in the Minsk workers’ school because of anti-Semitic propaganda. A worker, Lichovidov, in a Witebsk factory, was discharged for torturing a Jewish fellow worker.
The Tass, Soviet news agency, reports that the National Minorities Commission in White Russia, has decided to fight anti-Semitism. The question of anti-Semitism was also raised at the All Russian conference of the Village Workers’ Correspondents which is now in session in Moscow. A Jewish delegate to the conference from Kiev, speaking in Yiddish, urged the Correspondents (semiofficial Communist representatives) to wage a war on anti-Semitism.
An investigation ordered into the case of the Jewish worker Shulman, disclosed that in the Leningrad factory where he was mistreated, the persecution of Jewish workers has been going on for the past several months.
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.
