Declaration of Freedom for Soviet Jews Signed on Capitol Steps

A “Declaration of Freedom” for Soviet Jews was signed on the Capitol steps this afternoon by more than 250 American Jewish leaders and representatives of Jewish communities abroad, marking the close of a two-day National Leadership Assembly convened by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry to discuss the current crisis facing Jews in the USSR.

The Declaration urged President Ford to “communicate to the Soviet government that in the best American tradition we seek an end to all discrimination and repression of Soviet Jews.” It condemned anti-Semitic propaganda in the Soviet Union and urged that “the plight of Soviet Jews must be kept on the agenda of every appropriate international forum.”

The Declaration also declared support for Congress in its legislation linking American trade with the USSR with Soviet emigration practices and called for a careful study by the lawmakers of Soviet violations of human rights in the area of restrictive emigration practices.

Earlier today the delegates to the assembly at the Statler-Hilton Hotel were addressed by Senators Henry M. Jackson (D. Wash.) and Edward Kennedy (D. Mass.). Both assured the gathering that Congressional support for the Jackson-Vanik legislation is not eroding and U.S. friendship and assistance for Israel will continue. “Perhaps it is more appropriate today than at any other time in the recent past to say–reassessment or no reassessment–that the friendship will endure between us and Israel,” Kennedy declared.

He also told the delegates that on his recent trip to the Soviet Union he met with Jewish activists and declared, “I shall continue to add my voice to yours in appealing for freedom for those Soviet Jews who are imprisoned and harassed,”

Jackson said he did not personally know of any Senator who had backed the Jackson-Vanik legislation who has said he would no longer support it, Congress, Jackson asserted, will remain firmly behind the law and the Ford Administration and the Soviet government will in time have to recognize that, The U.S., he said, must stand by its own law which is based on international law–the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights–that has been signed by the Soviet government.

U.S., UN URGED TO SPEAK OUT FOR SOVIET JEWS

Stanley H. Lowell, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, told the delegates yesterday that he was calling on Treasury Secretary William Simon and Secretary of Commerce Frederick Dent as well as American representatives at the United Nations to speak out on behalf of freedom for Soviet Jews, He said that Simon and Dent especially “should not lend credence while in Moscow to the Soviet expression that trade has suffered because of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.”

Lowell added, “and of course, the Secretary of State and the President of the United States should reiterate again and again their previous expressions of support of freedom for Soviet Jewry and not treat this matter as last year’s business.”