2 Soviet Jewry Groups Reject Charges of Misrepresentation in Katz Case

Two organizations working for Soviet Jews today rejected charges by Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives, that they had misrepresented facts in the case of Jessica Katz. Dulzin made his charge in an address on Soviet Jewry to the United Jewish Appeal 40th anniversary conference in New York last weekend. Robert Gordon, president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), stated:

“Action for Soviet Jews and the UCSJ reject Mr. Dulzin’s claim that misrepresentations were made by Boston activist groups with regard to Jessica Katz. The facts of the Jessica Katz case were always accurately presented by the AFSJ and UCSJ. Mr. Dulzin’s claim that the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ) is the ‘official spokesman for American Jewry’ on Soviet Jewish affairs is meaningless in that the UCSJ is composed of organizations in 23 American cities representing roughly 1 1/2 million American Jews. His statement that the NCSJ had ever warned Boston activist groups against ‘exaggerating claims’ and ‘misrepresentation of facts’ is both untrue and presumptuous.”

The controversy arose over the reported serious illness of Jessica Katz, the 14-month-old daughter of Boris and Natasha Katz of Moscow who arrived in Boston recently from the Soviet Union. The child appeared to be in good health when she arrived although reports in the press, some of them based on information from Soviet Jewry activists, and some based on the newspapers’ own correspondents in Moscow, stated that she was gravely ill and was brought to the U.S. for medical treatment unavailable in the Soviet Union. The child had been ill last spring but apparently recovered.