bility the council of the Jewish community of Kovno decided to organize a public protest. The Rabbinate issued a call to the Jews to close their places of business on November 17, 1924, and to congregate in the synagogues for prayer and fasting as a protest against the projected measure, which they feared would ruin the economic life of the Jews of the country. On November 17th, the Jewish population of Kovno, joined by a small number of non-Jews, suspended work and struck. Great numbers congregated in the synagogues, others demonstrated in the streets. The business life of the city was completely paralyzed, but the day passed peacefully. The following day the Sejm, disregarding the protest, passed the Compulsory Sunday Observance Law and ordered the Kovno police to make an investigation of the protest. According to the press reports, the court sentenced the editor of Di Yiddishe Stimme to one month's imprisonment for the publication of the appeal of the Rabbinate. The military commander of Kovno imposed fines on all Jewish vendors of foodstuffs who closed their places of business on that day. Early in February, however, the military court dismissed the government's case against the rabbis who had issued the call to the meeting of protest.

The case of the Jews of Salonica presented other aspects. In 1919, during the course of the negotiations of the peace treaties in Paris, the Jewish delegations foresaw the danger of the possible introduction of a compulsory Sunday rest in Salonica, and they made a demand for the insertion of a special article on the subject in the Greek minorities Treaty. The demand was waived in deference to a solemn assurance by the Greek government in Salonica that no

such legislation would be introduced. But in May, 1924, the municipality of Salonica passed resolutions asking the central government to institute compulsory Sunday observance in the city of Salonica. Petitions to the government by the Jewish community of Salonica proved fruitless. On June 3, 1924,a deputation of the Joint Foreign Committee visited the Greek Minister in London to call his attention to the promise made by M. Venizelos, the Greek commissioner to the Peace Conference, during the peace negotiations in 1919, that Sunday observance would not be enforced in Salonica. On June 30, 1924, the Minister received word from Athens that the proposed law could not be withdrawn. The Joint Foreign Committee then informed the Greek Minister that it had no alternative but to bring the case in due time before the League of Nations. Late in the summer, meetings of protest were held in many cities in Palestine. Chief Rabbi A. S. Onderwyzer of Amsterdam also protested to the Greek government and to the National Assembly. During the course of the session of the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva, September, 1924, as a result of discussions between the special delegate of the Joint Foreign Committee and a representative of the Hellenic government, the latter gave assurances that the Greek government, realizing that the existing Sunday Rest Law could not remain as it was, would introduce an Amending Bill in the Greek Parliament with a view to satisfying the Jews of Salonica. Owing to a change of government which took place in October, legislation has not yet been introduced. The Joint Foreign Committee, however, was informed by the new government that it adheres to the views of its predecessors. The Jews, never

theless, abstained from appealing to public opinion through the League of Nations because it was feared that such action might endanger the floating of the Greek Refugees Loan then under consideration by the Council of the League, the failure of which would have caused wide-spread suffering in Greece.

It became evident during the year that reactionaries and anti-Semites were using the compulsory Sunday observance as a blind for their activities to harm and to ruin the economic life of the Jews. In the case of Lithuania, the press reported that Father Williams, leader of the government party in the Sejm, declared that the Lithuanian compulsory Sunday observance law was intended as a punishment which the Christian democracy desired to mete out to the Jews because the latter sided with the liberals.

In the United States a determined campaign was made during the past year by church organizations, headed by the Lord's Day Alliance, to introduce legislation providing for the compulsory observance of Sunday. Early in the Spring of 1924, a bill was introduced in the United States Senate, providing for rigidly enforced compulsory Sunday observance in the District of Columbia. The bill, if and when passed, was to be used as a model for similar legislation throughout the country. The bill was very drastic in its provisions. It sought to prohibit all labor except work of necessity and charity. The bill evoked a great deal of interest all over the country and in the Congressional Record were recorded hundreds of thousands of protests sent to Congressmen from every state in the Union. There were also numerous appeals for the passage of the Jones bill. It was consistently fought by the Seventh Day Adventists.

During the year the Central Labor Union of the District of Columbia with a membership of 65,000 went on record as opposed to the Jones Sunday bill, as did also the Chamber of Commerce of the District of Columbia. The opposition was chiefly on the ground that the bill would close all places of amusement in Washington. Although the bill has been before Congress for some time, the 68th Congress adjourned without taking action on it.

More noteworthy is the fact that early in 1925, ths Assembly of the State of New York defeated the Jenke bill, which provided that the first day of the week be "set apart as the American Sabbath for rest and religious uses", and that all labor on that day be prohibited except works of necessity or charity. It is worth noting that the bill provided that a person observing another day of the week as a Sabbath day "may not be prosecuted for individual work or labor on the first day of the week, provided such work is performed so as not to interrupt or disturb the quiet or repose of the day and the religious liberty of the community; but he may not employ any labor or conduct any business."

In Minnesota, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the one-day-rest-in-seven law which was approved in April, 1923. The Court took the stand that the law violated the equality clauses of both the Federal and the State constitutions by providing that employees shall be given one day of rest in each week in certain specific employments, while excluding certain other specific employments from operation of the act.

SABBATH AND HOLIDAY OBSERVANCE IN THE SCHOOLS.— The most noteworthy event was the Roumanian decree

concerning non-attendance at schools on the Sabbath Day. In the fall, the Minister of Education ordered that Jewish children be freed from attending on the Sabbath Day in any school where Jewish children form the majority.

The problem of writing lessons on the Sabbath day for Jewish students in state schools was not acute. In Soviet Russia, the government agreed, according to press reports, to exempt Jewish students at universities from writing on the Sabbath day provided the students agreed to forfeit privileges enjoyed by communist students.

The question of holding examinations in the schools on the Sabbath day came up before the University of London during the past year. Early in 1925, the Registrar of that University declared "that endeavors should be made to avoid, as far as possible, the holding of examinations on Saturdays... In exceptional cases when it is necessary to set special alternative examinations for individual Jewish candidates, the cost of such examinations will be borne by the candidates". In the United States the Tract Commission of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, during the past year, sent Jewish calendars to 137 Presidents of colleges and to 576 superintendents of public schools accompanied by a request not to schedule, if possible, examinations on the holidays.

PUBLIC OBSERVANCE OF SABBATH AND HOLIDAYS.-In Palestine the agitation to make Sabbath desecration by Jews a misdemeanor, noted in previous "Surveys", finally bore some fruit. During the year the town of Tel Aviv passed a bill providing for compulsory observance of the Sabbath. Jews are prohibited from performing