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‘discriminatory Treatment’ of Jews in Russia Stressed in London

March 27, 1961
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A resolution expressing “grave concern” over the “discriminatory treatment” to which Jews in the Soviet Union are subjected, and calling for a reversal of such Soviet policies, was adopted unanimously here today by the delegates attending the 60th annual conference of the British Zionist Federation.

Dr. S. Levenberg, a leader of the British Labor-Zionist movement, told the conference that, in the last year, 77 articles attacking Jewry and Zionism have appeared in the Soviet press. The main problem facing Soviet Jewry now, he declared, “concerns nationality and socioeconomic affairs.” The Soviet policy toward Jews, he stated, “is contradictory, forcing Jews toward assimilation and, at the same time, impelling them toward separatism.”

The conference resolution appealed to the Soviet authorities “to grant to the Jewish community in the USSR the opportunity to develop in freedom its own, great spiritual heritage; to establish and maintain local and central Jewish cultural institutions; to enjoy freedom of religious activities; and to recognize the specific historical position of the Jewish people, scattered the world over, permitting the Soviet Jewish citizens to maintain contact with other Jewish communities, and to allow the emigration to Israel of those who wish to be reunited with their families.

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