The American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry criticized today the group of 11 Soviet citizens now visiting this country for rejecting an offer by the Conference to participate in a “public discussion on the subject of Soviet Jews.” The invitation had been extended by the Conference this weekend prior to the Soviet group’s departure from New York for a tour of the nation’s major cities. The group, headed by Col. Gen. David Dragunsky, the highest ranking Jewish officer in the Soviet Army, arrived in New York last Wednesday. Of the 11, the only other identifiable Jewish member is Samuel Zivs, chairman of the Soviet Bar Association.
Richard Maass, chairman of the Conference, said he issued the invitation in the hope that “in the American tradition there would be an opportunity to air all sides of the issue together, before the world.” According to Maass, “the organized Jewish community in this country believed that the group…had brought us a message related to our concern for Soviet Jews. We also believed that the Jewish members of this delegation were interested in seeing the richness and variety of Jewish cultural and religious life available to American Jews.”
DRAGUNSKY’S CLAIM CHALLENGED
Maass said the Jewish members of this group went to the American public “through our mass media to relate their views about Soviet Jewish life.” Maass added that as visitors to this country “they have that right, but we deplore the use of selective data to confuse Americans about the plight of Soviet Jews.” The Conference chairman stated that his organization challenged a claim by Gen. Dragunsky that “only a few thousand” Jews wish to leave the USSR for Israel.
Maass noted that “tens of thousands of Soviet Jews have dared to sign their names to petitions” demanding the right of emigration and that “some 80,000 Soviet Jews have had the courage to risk their jobs, their homes, their education–even their very lives–by applying for emigration to Israel.” He added that “hundreds of thousands more Jews would apply for emigration to Israel if they did not have to put themselves and their families in peril for doing so.”
Responding to the tour’s stated goal, which is to help achieve world peace, the Conference welcomed the initiatives and suggested that “while peace between our two countries is something for which we must all strive, Jews cannot permit the sad plight of their Soviet brothers to be ignored.” Maass stated that in the cities which the Soviet groups will visit, the Russians will be met by “truth squads” to counter any propaganda about Soviet Jews aimed at the American public.
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