Canadian Jews Press Yeltsin on Anti-semitism in Russia

A Canadian Jewish group used the occasion of Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s visit here last weekend to express its “special concern” over organized anti-Semitism in his country and to ask for assurances on other issues of Jewish interest.

A letter was forwarded to the Russian ambassador, Richard Ovinnikov, by B’nai Brith Canada’s Institute for International Affairs, for presentation to Yeltsin before he met here Saturday with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

A copy was sent to Mulroney, with the request that he raise the particular issues with Yeltsin, who stopped in Canada on his way from the United States, where he attended a special U.N. Security Council summit meeting and then met with President Bush at Camp David.

The Canadian Jews’ letter to Yeltsin underscored “special concern” for the “condition of the Jewish minority, which has faced a series of serious anti-Semitic attacks in recent years. That some of these attacks have been organized and appear to have found significant support in the general population is most troubling.”

The letter asked Yeltsin’s “assurance that Russia is committed to addressing the question of human rights broadly.”

B’nai Brith Canada also sought his assurance that Russia “remains committed to bringing surviving Nazi war criminals to justice” in cooperation with Canada and other states engaged in the process.

In addition, the group asked “that every possible route of enquiry will be open to investigators seeking information regarding the fate of Raoul Wallenberg,” the Swedish war hero who was taken prisoner by the Soviets and never heard from again.

The letter was signed by Marilyn Wainberg, national president of B’nai Brith Canada, and Frank Dimant, its executive vice president.