The executive of the World Agudas Israel Organization has submitted a 22-point memorandum outlining its suggestions for the protection of Jewish rights in the Austrian peace treaty to the Foreign Ministers Conference which is now meeting in Moscow, the organization revealed today.
The memorandum lists 22 recommendations on human rights, property restitution, reparations and indemnification, which are similar to those proposed by other leading Jewish organizations. Its recommendations for the protection of Jewish religious practices are:
1. Recognition of the right of Jews to observe their Sabbath on Saturday and carry on normal activities on Sunday.
2. The right to practice ritual slaughter, free from all restrictions.
3. The government must grant Jewish communities the same legal status as other religious communities and it must not interfere with the internal organization of the Jewish communities.
4. Within one year following the ratification of the treaty institutions and individuals having custody of Jewish orphans must register their names with the government and Jewish religious organizations must be given the facilities for caring for the children. The government is also to assume full financial responsibility for the program.
5. The government is to defray the cost of exhuming the bodies of Jews killed by the Nazis and to make available facilities to rebury them in Jewish cemeteries which would have the same status as those for the nation’s war dead.
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