Jews Warned on Moscow’s Claims of Easing Anti-jewish Discriminations

British Jewry was warned today against being under the impression that the Soviet Government is relaxing its restrictions on Jews in the Soviet Union It was urged to do everything possible to call the attention of the world to the continued oppression of Jewish religion and culture in Russia.

The warning was sounded by Sir Barnett Janner, Labor member of the British Parliament and former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, in a report presented to the monthly meeting of the Board of Deputies of which he is the chairman of the foreign affairs committee.

In reviewing the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union at the present moment, Sir Barnett said that the Soviet Government has recently undertaken “a massive propaganda effort to disarm international public opinion” regarding the oppressions against Soviet Jewry which, he stated, are continuing despite all the official Soviet efforts to paint a brighter picture.

“It is impossible,” he said, “for Jews in this country and abroad to watch the situation of the Jews in Russia without making their concern and misgivings known to the Soviet authorities. In recent months, certain claims have been made that there are improvements in the position of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union. Hardly a week goes by without reports appearing in Western newspapers, and in Soviet publications appearing in the West, giving the impression that things are really beginning to change at last. But when one examines these reports, it becomes clear they are mainly repetitions of the same few facts or promises.

“There have been three Yiddish books published in the USSR in editions of 15,000 each. Many of these books are sent to Western countries. Those that remain are obviously inadequate for the needs of the half-million Soviet Jews whose mother tongue is Yiddish and who have been deprived of their culture for nearly 20 years.

ANTI-JEWISH ARTICLES STILL APPEAR IN SOVIET NEWSPAPERS

“Each of these books” Sir Barnett pointed out, “has been massively publicized by the Soviet authorities–not in the Soviet Union itself but in the world outside. First there were scores of reports announcing that each book was planned. Then there was another big propaganda offensive announcing that the book was in preparation. Finally, the insignificant edition was ready, and the news was repeated in the Soviet press and radio reports to the West for weeks and months.

“In the same way, some promises of amelioration of restrictions on Jewish religious life in the Moscow community have not only been given constant repetition, but have also been presented as if they somehow applied to the religious life of the whole Soviet Jewish community–which, of course, they do not. To add substance to all this, Pravda noted, for the first time in many years, a (Communist) Party reference to the fact that Lenin had condemned anti-Semitism.

“The fact is that the Soviet Union is still the only country in Eastern Europe that has made no attempt to deal responsibly and realistically with the tragic problem of reunification of Jewish families who still, today, suffer the after-effects of the Nazi destruction of entire communities of the Jewish people.”

Sir Barnett stressed that “disgusting anti-Jewish articles still appear in Soviet newspapers, masquerading as propaganda against Judaism.” Outside the main Soviet centers visited by tourists, he declared, “the Jews are still without synagogues or are hindered in their religious observance, and all synagogues are subject to harassment by Soviet security authorities. Nothing has been done to give Soviet Jews the most elementary national educational facilities or the minimal requirements necessary to keep alive their culture and their national historical identity.”

The Anglo-Jewish leader then criticized the USSR sharply for the recent efforts of its delegation to the United Nations to have Zionism equated with Nazism as an amendment to a U. N. convention calling for the elimination of all forms of racial intolerance. The Soviet delegation had introduced such an amendment in an effort, which succeeded, to wipe out a proposed United States amendment condemning anti-Semitism.

“It is clearly impossible for us,” Sir Barnett told the Board of Deputies, “to stand by and watch this situation without making our concern and our misgivings known to the Soviet authorities. The Jewish community in this country and in other countries cannot be indifferent to the plight of Soviet Jews, to whom many of us are related by the closest family ties. The fact that they are allowed no organization, no voice in their own affairs, makes our responsibility ever greater.

“We must, therefore, do everything in our power to bring their plight to the attention of public opinion and to influence the Soviet Government by all means available to us, to give full justice and equality to them at last,” he urged.