Asia Hearings End Without Mention of Appeals for Voa Yiddish Broadcasts

Appropriations hearings before the United States Information Agency ended yesterday without mention of recent requests for Voice of America broadcasts in Yiddish to the Soviet Union proposed in recent weeks by Jewish organizations and several Congressmen. The event also was marked by complaints by two Boston Jewish leaders of non-cooperation on the matter by Sen. Edward Brooke, Massachusetts Republican. The complaints were made by Henry Feuerstein, who came here on behalf of the Ad Hoc Committee On Voice of America Broadcasting, and by Rabbi Samuel J. Fox, president of the Massachusetts Council of Rabbis. Feuerstein said he came here to ask the Senator to ask USIA director Frank Shakespeare about his refusals to consider Yiddish broadcasting.

Feuerstein said the Senator’s office had instructed him to send some pertinent information on the question and that “it would be taken care of.” He said that when he learned that the material he sent had not arrived, he brought a list of questions to the Senator’s office and that he had been given to understand that the questions would be asked at the hearings. Rabbi Fox told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency he had been “given the definite impression” that the questions would be asked at the hearings. Marilyn Dexheimer, one of the Senator’s legislative assistants, told the JTA that unless the Senator personally approved the questions, they would not be asked in his absence, adding that the Senator was not able to attend the hearings and could not be reached to approve the questions. Feuerstein charged that the Senator’s office had stalled him and “as it turned out, never intended to ask the questions.”