Canadian Parliamentary Delegation Reports on Talks on Jews in Moscow

A Canadian Parliamentary delegation, which visited Moscow recently, discussed human rights with Soviet leaders, including the religious rights of Jews in the USSR, M. Cadieux, Canada’s Undersecretary for External Affairs, notified Rabbi S. M. Zambrowsky, chairman of the national religious affairs committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

The letter to Rabbi Zambrowsky was in response to one calling attention of the Canadian Government to the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union. Rabbi Zambrowsky asked whether the parliamentary delegation had an opportunity to discuss the denial of rights to Soviet Jewry when it visited the USSR.

In his reply, M. Cadieux noted that such a discussion of human rights and the religious rights of minorities had taken place. He asserted that the discussion was “likely to reinforce the tendency toward some relaxation in Soviet treatment of Jewish communities which had come about recently.” He also indicated that the Department for External Affairs is “kept abreast of the situation in order to take any helpful action we can whenever the opportunity offers.”