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Calls on U.S. Jews to Intensify Fight Against Totalitarianism

September 16, 1953
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A call to American Jews to rededicate themselves in the New Year to upholding the spirit of freedom and aiding all those who resist the forces of totalitarianism, was voiced here tonight on a nationwide radio broadcast by Jacob Blaustein, president of the American Jewish Committee.

In a special Yom Kippur program originating in New York and sponsored by the Committee, Mr. Blaustein asserted that the spirit of freedom in man can never be killed by “corroding propaganda or police techniques of tyranny,” citing recent uprisings in East Germany and Czechoslovakia to support his point. He urged Americans to “buttress” the efforts of those who struggle against dictatorships abroad by setting an example of what free men can do in America; by working for equal justice and opportunity for all Americans and by combatting the efforts of those who would “curtail the freedom of their fellow citizens.”

“We can give new hope to those resisting tyranny,” Mr. Blaustein added, “by our determination to continue fortifying the moral and spiritual outposts of freedom throughout the world; by strengthening our democratic allies; and aiding Israel, democracy’s young vigorous bulwark in the Near East, so that she may consolidate her economic and social gains and stand as a force for peace and justice in a striferidden area.”

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