The demand for equal rights for Soviet Jewry, which has been raised for many years, has led nowhere while the demand that they be allowed to leave has brought results, the chairman of the Zionist Executive, Louis Pincus, said in a special interview reacting to criticisms of Zionist and Jewish leaders over the Zionist Executive’s decision not to let Dr. Nahum Goldmann make the central speech on 75 years of Zionism at the forthcoming Zionist Congress.
Pincus said that the World Jewish Congress which Dr. Goldmann heads, as well as other Jewish organizations, had expressed their considered opinion on Soviet Jewry at the Brussels conference last February. The relevant resolution called for the return of Soviet Jews to Israel and also for letting them live a free Jewish life.
In his London speech to the Board of Deputies which led to the cancellation of the invitation, Dr. Goldmann, Pincus noted, had emphasized the two demands in the exactly opposite order: he had demanded first of all free cultural life for Soviet Jewry and also their being allowed to emigrate to Israel. In addition, he had belittled emigration saying that in any case only a small number would really leave for Israel if permitted to do so, Pincus said.
Saying these things at the present moment was a political blunder of the first order, Pincus observed. “To choose the moment when our efforts are being crowned with success–with thousands pouring into the country–diminishing the centrality of the demand for emigration is diluting our strength as the fight has begun to show results,” he stated.
SOVIET JEWS DEMAND EMIGRATION
It had been the demand of Soviet Jews themselves that world Jewish bodies come to their aid, Pincus revealed. They themselves had come to the conclusion that no rights would be given to them. Therefore, they asked that world opinion be enlisted in their behalf for one purpose: their right to emigrate. The World Jewish Congress is a political body conducting a political fight. For its president to try and turn the clock back to two-pronged demands is inappropriate and uncalled for, Pincus said. “For a Zionist, aliya is summum bonum,” he stated.
“Dr. Goldmann is too experienced a politician not to have realized what his statement would do. This is not the time for stating philosophies–there is no choice between living a Jewish life and emigrating. Dr. Goldmann surely knows this. It is not wrong to ask for Jewish rights. But is it practical? The Soviet authorities have closed schools, curtailed synagogues, suppressed community life until the Russian Jews themselves have come to the conclusion that the only salvation for them lay outside the Soviet Union. They have asked help in this demand and not in the other.”
Recounting conversations he recently had with olim from the Soviet Union, Pincus said that they certainly do not see things like Dr. Goldmann. All this made the Zionist Executive take the decision to cancel his appearance as the only speaker at an evening devoted to the history of Zionism, although Dr. Goldmann is free to come and speak on any subject he chooses, Pincus stated.
NEGATED PRIMACY OF ALIYA
He then recounted some of the history of the Goldmann invitation. Pincus said that when Dr. Goldmann first suggested it, he made it a condition that the invitation be unanimous. The Herut representative in the Executive voted against the invitation but Dr. Goldmann had been prepared to accept this for practical purposes as unanimous. The proposal, however, had to go according to the Zionist constitution, to the Zionist General Council. There it was opposed at the time by the Independent Liberals, Achdut Avoda, the World Union of General Zionists and of course Herut. This meeting took place before the London speech.
Dr. Goldmann himself had written Pincus several times that if the idea would meet any difficulty he would not have the slightest hesitation in stepping down, Pincus said. Then came the London speech to which the reaction in Israel was very strong. The fact that Dr. Goldmann was negating the primacy of aliya at this moment–a fact borne out by the full transcript of the London speech–was so sharply attacked that it was clear the unanimity required by Dr. Goldmann for his invitation to appear on the festive occasion of 75 years of Zionism no longer existed.
The Executive’s decision, therefore, reflected not only the feeling among Russian immigrants and public opinion in Israel but was also in keeping with Dr. Goldmann’s stipulations themselves. Pincus explained. “The highest solution to Jewish distress, of which reports abound from the Soviet Union, is aliya to the Jewish State. The Zionist Congress must give expression to this clear opinion if it is to be true to itself. With all my personal distress over the matter I could not recommend any other course than I did,” Pincus concluded.
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.
