The Reform Advocate (Chicago, Illinois) (June 23, 1900)
FOREIGN NEWS .
It has been decided that widows of Russian soldiers who have served their term according to the old system may live in any part of the empire.
Russian merchants of the 2d guild are now permitted to employ clerks of the Jewish persuasion , besides having Jewish servants in their service .
The governor-general of Kieff reports that there are 146,993 Jews in the government , and that the meat and candle taxes realize nearly $200,000 per annum .
A number of Jewish communities of the government of Odessa petitioned the minister of education to increase the number of Jewish pupils in the secondary technical institute . The reply just given is in the negative .
On the first day of the orthodox Easter some individuals solemnly burnt , in the courtyard of the Metropolitan Cathedral at Jassy , the works of Kant , Spinoza , Schopenhauer , Renan , Max Nordau and others . The auto da fé had been previously announced , the reason given being that these writings were anti-religious and dangerous through the views which they propagated .
It is well known that the Hungarian government has forbidden Roumanian Jews from settling in Hungary. But the government has now gone farther . A large number of Jews in Berlad (Roumania) who had decided to emigrate, were obliged, owing to their extreme poverty, to make the journey to Hamburg on foot. But the Austro-Hungarian authorities refused to allow them to pass through the country; and as hundreds of Jews in Jassy and other Roumanian towns also contemplated journeying on foot to a German or Dutch port , they will be obliged to plan some other route for their toilsome pilgrimage .
In the midst of the anti-Semitic agitation in the Austrian half of the dual monarchy, the following is of interest . The commune of Erzsébetfalva , in the vicinity of Buda-Pesth , has a population of 20,000 , of which 14,000 are Catholics the remainder being Lutherans , Reformed , and Jews . These four creeds live in such perfect harmony , that they have resolved to unite in procuring the money necessary for four places of worship , not a single house of God existing in the community. They have therefore petitioned the government to assist them in their endeavor for the purposes of which they have issued 1,250,000 lottery tickets at one crown each . After deducting expenses of prizes , the net revenue will be 350,000 crowns which will be devoted to the building of a Roman Catholic church, a Lutheran church , a Calvinist chapel and a synagogue