Jewish Books Confiscated by Soviet Being Offered for Sale in U.S. by Amtorg

A large number of the Jewish religious books that the Soviet government has of late been confiscating in its war on religion have been shipped to the American Russian Trading Company, the Soviet’s business agents in the United States, which has in tur# been trying to sell them to Jewish libraries and bibliophiles in this country, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today.

A number of these volumes have been offered to the Jewish division of the New York Public Library and for a day or two some of them were lying on a table in the Jewish room. Dr. Joshua Bloch, director of the Jewish Division, admitted to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that the books had been offered for sale to him. He said that he would without hesitation buy those that were in Hebrew if the funds were made available.

The exact number of these confiscated books that the American Russian Trading Company has for sale has not been learned but it is known that some of the Jewish books, which are said to have considerable historical value, have been sold to Jewish book collectors in Chicago.

When informed of this, Bernard Deutsch, president of the American Jewish Congress, said that “if this is true the Soviets who are dead set against everything relating to Jewish learning and Jewish culture are nevertheless not averse to profiting by the sale in other lands of books stolen from their owners in Russia. The thing is as lamentable as it is cruel.” Mr. Deutsch also pointed out that the sale of the books in this country “proves only too conclusively what I and my associates in the American Jewish Congress have been saying for more than two years about the religious assault by the Soviets upon Judaism.”