PERSECUTION OF JEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 305, 26 December 1928, Page 5

PERSECUTION OF JEWS.

100,000 MASSACRED.

An illustrated lecture on the conditions existing among the Jews in Eastern Europe was given by Mr. Jacobi, ot the Jewish community, last evening in the Auckland Jewish Social Club. The chair was taken by Mr. N. Alfred Nathan, president of the Auckland Hebrew Congregation. Half the Jewish population of the world lived in Eastern Europe, in Russia, Poland, Latvia and Rumania, said Mr. Jacobi. The task of repairing the ravages of war, famine and disease, and of securing the reconstruction of Jewish life in Eastern Europe had been undertaken by the Jewish World Relief Organisation. There had been 8!)G progroins or organised massacres of Jews since the war, more than 100,000 persons having been killed. To-day there were 200.000 Jewish orphans. Whole communities had been wiped out by famine and there had been a succession of devastating epidemics. In Russia, the Soviet Government had appropriated unto itself all the commerce and hacl destroyed the economic life of the, Jews. There was a time, only a few years ago, when in parts of Eastern Europe the number of deaths among Jews was ten times greater than the number of births. An immense volume of medical relief had been made possible by the establishment of clinics, hospitals and dispensaries, 700,000 patients having attended these institutions. The 3 Jewish population had turned its attention to agriculture and artisanship, and a society for the promotion of trades and agriculture among Jews was concentrating on vocational training and agricultural development. The society for preserving the health of the Jews was rebuilding the efficiency of Eastern European Jewry. "One cf the greatest tragedies of the centuries," was the way in which the Rev. S. A. Goldstein characterised the condition of the Jews in Eastern Kurope. Mrs. David L. Nathan, president of the Women's Zionist Society, and also of the Jewish Ladies Benevolent f?ocietv, assured Mr. Jacobi of sympathetic support for the objects of his mission. The meeting pledged itself to give generous support to Mr. .l;icohi"s appeal, sind a substantial sum was donated by 1 those present.