THE JEWS UNDER THE PEACE TREATIES The territorial changes which followed the War closely affected the Jews of eastern and south-eastern Europe. Two-fifths of them were taken over by Poland, which had more than 3,500,000 Jews among its 27,000,00o inhabitants. About 250,000 Jews were in cluded in Lithuania, about ioo,000 in Latvia and about 8,000 in Estonia. Only 3,000,00o Jews remained under Russian rule, as compared with about 7,000,00o in 1914. Of these, two-thirds were in the Ukraine. About 350,000 Jews were left in Austria and about 500,00o in Hungary, as compared with about 2,250,000 in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Of the remainder, about 350, 00o passed to Czechoslovakia, while as a result of the annexation of Transylvania and the Bukowina, together with the Russian province of Bessarabia, Rumania increased her Jewish population from a little over 200,000 to more than r,000,000. These changes of allegiance were in themselves not necessarily for the worse, but they involved the disruption of old-established communities and broke them up in fragments, each of which had at once to re organise its internal life and establish a modus vivendi with new and in most cases none too friendly rulers.
The Peace Conference.—It was in these circumstances that the Jewish problem was brought to the attention of the Peace Conference. It presented itself in a twofold aspect. The Allies had already undertaken to facilitate the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine. This undertaking held good, but it was none the less necessary to define and safeguard the rights of the Jewish minorities in eastern and southeastern Europe. As to what those rights should be Jewish opinion was divided. The east European Jews themselves, speaking through their repre sentatives on a body known as the committee of Jewish delega tions at the Paris Peace conference, demanded the recognition of the Jews in the succession states as "national minorities" enjoying a substantial measure of self-government. This view was sup ported by the Jewish delegates from the United States but was opposed by those from Great Britain and France, who limited themselves to a programme of "minority rights" not implying the creation of anything in the nature of a state within the state.
This more moderate claim was eventually conceded in the Minority Treaties, of which the first was signed by Poland on the one hand and the principal Allied and Associated Powers on the other on June 28, 1919. This treaty makes it impossible for Poland to create a class of foreigners possessing no national status, such as the Jews had been in pre-War Rumania. Racial, religious and linguistic minorities are to enjoy complete equality before the law, the free use of their own languages, the right to control their own religious, educational and social institutions and an equitable share of public funds allotted to educational, religious or charitable purposes.
Over and above these provisions, which apply to minorities generally, the treaty specifically empowers the Jews to appoint local committees for the management of their own schools and provides that they shall not be under any disability by reason of their refusal to attend courts of law or vote at elections on the Sabbath. Poland recognises these stipulations as matters of inter national concern and agrees that they shall be guaranteed by the League of Nations. The league formally guaranteed the treaty on Feb. 13, 1920.
Similar obligations, in each case guaranteed by the league, were accepted by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Austria, Hun gary and Bulgaria: One important result of these transactions was the emancipation of the Jews in Rumania, including the inhabi tants of the old kingdom, as well as of the territories annexed as a result of the War. After the close of the Peace Conference, under takings on the lines of those contained in the Minority Treaties, though on the whole less stringent, were secured by the Council of the League from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It was only in the exceptional case of Poland that it was thought necessary to make express provision for the Jews, but if the rights which they shared with other minorities were respected, they had little to fear.