Hadassah Says USSR Jews Need Jewish Lore in Soviet Languages

Mrs. Mortimer Jacobson, president of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, reported today that a recent tour of the Soviet Union had reinforced her belief that Western protests against Soviet oppression of Russian Jews did have an effect, and should be continued consistently. She headed a group of 24 Hadassah leaders on a two-and-a-half week tour as the first American Jewish women’s group to visit the Soviet Union. She reported on the impressions of the group at a press conference here.

In urging continued protests, Mrs. Jacobson said that one of the impressions the Hadassah leaders received was that stress in such protests on restoration of Yiddish culture for Soviet Jews was not the answer to the problem of Jewish survival in the Soviet Union.

She said that Jewish children and youth in Russia do not know the language and that, while efforts should be continued to persuade Soviet authorities to provide Yiddish newspapers, books, plays and other cultural opportunities in Yiddish, it was more important to press for such cultural opportunities in Russian and other Soviet languages. The need, she said, is for Russian Jews, particularly the younger generation, to have the opportunity to learn about Judaism, Jewish history and Israel in the languages they use and understand.

“There is need,” Mrs. Jacobson stressed, “for schools where a Jew can study Jewish history and the Hebrew language, as well as regular subjects, in an overall education program that is recognized by the Soviet Government.” She said that, if conditions of today persist, Jewish life in the Soviet Union will be “snuffed out” within the next 10 years. She added that, while many Russian Jews apparently believed that assimilation was the only answer, a very large number wanted to remain identified as Jews and, for that goal, it was urgent that they be given the opportunity, in the languages they used, to learn and keep informed about Jewish matters.

MAJOR SOVIET JEWISH NEEDS SUMMARIZED; ISRAEL SCHOLARSHIP OFFER REJECTED

As other Jewish leaders have done, Mrs. Jacobson urged continued pressure on the Soviet Union to allow Russian Jews to participate in Jewish communal life “without fear of anti-Semitism and without fear of running afoul of the law.” She called for formal ties between the Jewish communities in all parts of the Soviet Union, for a federation of synagogues, for Jews to be allowed to participate in Jewish gatherings outside the Soviet Union, and for Jews to be allowed to reunite with families in other countries, including Israel.

She said the group offered Soviet authorities 500 scholarships to enable that many young Russian Jews to spend a summer in Israel and that the offer was rejected vigorously. The offer was made, she said, at a meeting of the Soviet-American Friendship League in its building in Moscow. The response, she said, initially was one of “a state of shock.” Then one of the Soviet officials said they would certainly not want to send any children, Jewish or non-Jewish, to “the decadent West,” and that if such an arrangement ever was made, the Soviet Union did not want any money from any foreign group. She said the offer was rejected by Aaron Vergelis, editor of the Yiddish magazine, Sovietish Heimland.

She said the Hadassah leaders had been told by Soviet officials that the Soviet Union was “an atheistic country” in which there was no place for religion. In that case, she said, the Soviet Union is obligated, under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to allow Jews who wish to perpetuate their Jewish heritage “to leave the Soviet Union for some other place where this right is guaranteed them.”