World Conference of Jewish Groups Closes with Appeal to Moscow

The World Conference of Jewish Organizations, attended by 75 delegates representing 10 major Jewish organizations, concluded here with an appeal to the Soviet Government to enable Soviet Jews to enjoy a national existence as other nationalities do in the Soviet Union.

The delegates welcomed the fact that a literary bi-monthly in Yiddish is to appear this month in Moscow and urged the Soviet authorities "to undertake more measures for the revival of Jewish culture such as the opening of Jewish schools." The delegates also expressed deep concern over reports that synagogues continued to be closed throughout the U.S.S.R. in open contradiction of "Soviet declarations that the Jews are guaranteed religious freedom."

The conference appealed to the Soviet Government to assure Soviet Jewry the same religious rights as are guaranteed to all religions by the Soviet constitution. The conference also urged the Soviet Union to allow its Soviet citizens to rejoin families in other countries in "accordance with the principle of human freedom."

During its sessions, the conference also reviewed problems confronting North African Jewry, Jewish education, Jewish relations with Christians, Middle East issues, the Arab refugee situation, and the impact upon world opinion of the Adolf Eichmann trial which closed last week at Jerusalem.

The presidium members of the conference, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Label A. Katz, and Sir Barnett Janner, were empowered by the delegates to draw up an agenda and to make all necessary preparations for an international conference on Jewish education to be held in the summer of 1962. The purpose of this future conference, which will be attended by Jewish educators and laymen from all over the world, will be to map out ways and means of strengthening Jewish education everywhere. The presidium is to decide whether the education conference is to be held in Jerusalem, as some delegates proposed, or in some European center.