Anglo-jewish Association Appeals for Unity Among Jewish Groups

An appeal for greater unity among British Jewish organizations in matters of national and foreign policy was voiced here today by R.N. Narvalho, president of the Anglo-Jewish Association. He pointed out that the lack of unity during the recent visit to England of Soviet Premier Bulganin and Communist Party chief Khrushchev had resulted in contradictory approaches to the Soviet leaders and the failure of Jewish groups to obtain an interview with the Soviet leaders.

In criticism of the role of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the affair and in the problem of unity in general, Mr. Carvalho said that the failure to achieve Jewish unity in advance of the arrival of Bulganin and Khrushchev had resulted “not only in a failure, which might have been the result anyway, but in the receipt by the Russians of two largely contradictory memoranda and a most unfortunate loss of dignity and prestige which falls, not only on the Board of Deputies, but unhappily on the whole Anglo-Jewish community.”

The AJA leader insisted that the visit of the Soviet chiefs would have been an appropriate occasion for the Board of Deputies “to have buried any rancor and ill feeling which may have existed from previous attempts at cooperation between Anglo-Jewish bodies and to have displayed good will and diplomacy in attempting to establish at least a degree of unity as far as the Russian situation was concerned.” He scored the Board’s failure to call a roundtable conference of Anglo-Jewish groups to “discuss what was best not for us but for the Jews of Eastern Europe” since there were clear indications that “only a joint delegation stood even a remote chance of being granted an interview” with the Soviet leaders.