A.D.L. Sees “gloomy” Future for Soviet Jewry; Reports on Anti-semitism

Soviet statistics highlight the steady destruction of the civil rights of Jews, who are being progressively squeezed out of educational, economic, political and social life in the Soviet Union, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith reported today. This has been accompanied by a nation-wide anti-Semitic campaign in the Soviet press and the continuing repression of the religious life of Jews, the ADL said.

The League’s report, "Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union Today," was made public by Henry Edward Schultz, the ADL’s national chairman. A key to the systematic exclusion of Jews from Russian life comes to light from latest Soviet figures on Jewish membership in the Soviet parliament now in the possession of the League. Whereas in 1937 Jews constituted 4.1 percent of the total membership, in 1958 Jewish membership dropped to one-fourth of one percent.

Other statistics obtained by the ADL reveal a consistent effort by Soviet authorities to degrade Jews in various fields of Russian life, scientific, educational and war services–"as if Jews did not exist there." Equally significant, the report declared, are statistics in the field of Soviet higher education. Noting that the existence of a quota system against Jewish students in Soviet universities and technical and academic institutes has been widely reported since 1955, the ADL said there is good ground for the belief that the barring of Jewish applicants has been extended.

With respect to religious repression, the ADL noted, the Khrushchev regime is continuing in full force the old Stalin policy of severely restricting the number of synagogues available to religious Jews, far below the number needed. "It prevents the building of new synagogues or the repair of old ones, and imposes unusual restrictions on the availability of necessary religious articles, such as prayer books and prayer shawls," the report stressed.

"Utterly deprived of any means of cultural or communal expression," the report added, "the Soviet Jew is yet required to identify himself as a Jew by nationality. The Jew’s identity card, specifying as his nationality–‘Jew’–is all that remains of formal, legal, official recognition of the Jewish nationality. This identification gains no rights for the Jew, but makes him an easier target for discrimination."

The report declared that, while restrictions against Jews have been tightened in education, in the diplomatic and military services, in government employment, and in Jewish religious life, Soviet newspapers and periodicals in the past year have been publishing regularly articles that are clearly anti-Semitic. "These have resorted to obvious and crude forms of stereotyping, in order to demonstrate the ‘anti-social, parasitical’ behavior of Jews in Soviet life," the report stated.

The report emphasized that "Soviet anti-Semitism and Soviet strategic objectives in the Middle East complement each other. The USSR’s pro-Arab anti-Israel diplomacy ties is perfectly with its older, anti-Zionist policy, as well as with its anti-Western strategy in the Middle East. Finally, the anti-Israel policy serves as a weapon to stifle Soviet Jewish sentiments for Israel and, as an additional device, for enforcing internal conformity and the rupture of all Jewish ties with the outside world."

The prospects for Soviet Jewry, the ADL declared, "are dire and gloomy: at best, the extinction of a once-flourishing and rich cultural tradition and life; at worst, the completion by the Communists of the heinous work begun by the Nazis–the liquidation by forcible assimilation of this community of three million Jews."