Flabellum a fan, later of an umbrella or canopy, was used as a mark of honour for bishops and princes. Prior to Vatican II, two fans of this kind were used at the Vatican whenever the pope was carried in state on the sedia gestatoria to or from an altar or audience-chamber. Through the influence of Count Ditalmo di Brozza, the fans formerly used at the Vatican were presented in 1902 to a Mrs. Joseph Drexel of Philadelphia, USA, by Pope Leo XIII; in return, she gave a new pair to the Vatican. The old ones are currently exhibited in the
Religion in the Soviet Union were traditionally responsible for maintaining synagogues. They created a special Jewish section of the party, whose tasks included propaganda against Jewish clergy and religion. To offset Jewish national and religious aspirations, and to reflect the Jewish national movement's role in the socialist movement of the Russian Empire (for example, Trotsky was first a member of the Jewish Bund, not the Social Democratic Labour Party), an alternative to the Land of Israel was established in 1934. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast, created in 1928 by Stalin, with Birobidzhan in the Russian Far East as its administrative center, was to become a "Soviet