American Jewish Committee Denounces Harap’s Views on Jews

The American Jewish Committee today addressed a communication to the House Committee on un-American Activities repudiating Louis Harap, editor of a leftist English-Jewish publication, who told the Committee that Jews are better off in the Soviet Union than in the United States. Declaring that Harap “employed Communist propaganda,” Mr. Irving M. Engle, chairman of the executive committee of the AJC, stated in his communication.

“Louis Harap speaks only for himself and for Communists. He is no more a spokesman for the religious group he seeks to exploit than for the democracy he professes to support, for Judaism and Communism are utterly incompatible. His injection of the false charge of anti-Semitism into your Committee’s investigation for Communism is a studied Communist maneuver in the long-standing attempt to besmirch American treatment of its religious and racial groups while praising the Soviet Union. As such, this maneuver should be exposed as a brazen design to hide from the world Communism’s long-standing campaign against minority groups, their religions and cultures.”