Arthur Calwell, former Australian Labor Party leader, disclosed here that he had urged Soviet authorities, during a recent visit to Russia, to allow Jewish families with relatives in Israel to join them there.
He also said that anti-Semitism existed in the Soviet Union partly as a result of the Israel “problem” and partly because of a “black streak” in many Russians stemming from the Czarist period. He asserted that Russians considered Jews as a “vestigial anachronism” and that they wanted them to leave, on the one hand, but were afraid of losing the “significant contributions” made by Jews to Russia, on the other.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
