American Jewish Committee Charges Russia Uses Jews As ‘scapegoats’

The American Jewish Committee today challenged Premier Khrushchev’s denial of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, and accused the Soviet regime of a policy of making the Jews in Russia scapegoats for its internal economic problems. In the Committee statement, A.M. Sonnabend, its president, charged that Jews were serving “to bear the brunt of public discontent for the low standard of living and shortage of goods in the USSR. ” In addition, he stated, Jews, “as a vulnerable minority, ” are being used “as the object lesson to show how seriously the state regards economic crimes.”

The statement further charged that “in singling out Jews for economic offenses, publicly branding them as Jewish by their affiliation with the synagogue–the only remaining Jewish institution in the Soviet Union–punishing them more harshly than non Jews in more responsible positions, and shooting a disproportionate number of them, the Soviet Government shows it is possible to condemn Stalinist policies while practicing them with regard to Jews. The recent closing of the Lvov synagogue is one more illustration of how the Soviet Union is pulverizing the Jewish religious community and terrorizing its Jewish citizens.”