Dr, Goldmann Hopes Khrushchev Would Enter “dialogue” on Soviet Jewry

The hope that the Soviet Government will finally recognize that the legitimate national rights of the Jews in the Soviet Union cannot be “stifled, ” and will permit Soviet Jewry free national self-expression, “both in terms of cultural self-expression and in terms of the right for those who wish to do it to emigrate to Israel,” was expressed today by Dr. Nahum Goldmann in an article in the New York Herald-Tribune.

Dr. Goldmann pointed out that over many years there have been attempts to talk with Soviet leaders about the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union, but these attempts came to nothing because Soviet spokesmen claimed that “there is no Jewish problem in the Soviet Union.” However, in his recent statement to the Paris newspaper “Le Figaro” Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made an important departure by emphasizing that the Jews in the Soviet Union constitute a nationality separate and distinct from other nationalities in the USSR, and that they do not live in similar conditions to the other nationalities there.

“This admission, albeit in negative terms, is essential to a serious dialogue on the implications of the Soviet-Jewish problem, ” Dr. Goldmann stated. “Once this is admitted, it obviously creates the question of how this nationality lives and what its future is to be, ” The world Jewish leader then went on to emphasize that Mr. Khrushchev, by his recognizing the existence of a Jewish nationality on the part of the Jews in the Soviet Union, and the existence of a Jewish question there, has created for the first time “the conditions for a dialogue. ” He expressed hope that “this dialogue will continue. “

“Nowhere in his interview does Mr. Khrushchev indicate a belief that Jews as such can be made to disappear, ” Dr. Goldmann wrote. “Although expressing skepticism about the possibility of a Jewish ‘collective existence. ‘ he does not even hint at the possibility of Jewish assimilation. This represents a far-reaching change in the appraisal by the Soviet leadership of the nature of the Jewish problem, and this new appraisal is entirely in accordance with the facts. For even if a Jew in the Soviet Union completely assimilates to the culture surrounding him. he is still regarded as a Jewish national.

“In his identity card his nationality is registered as Jewish, and it is impossible for this Jew to ‘solve’ the problem of his Jewishness by forgetting about it and affiliating himself, as it were, to any other nationality within the Soviet. Union. There would seem here to be an admission of what students of Jewish life in the Soviet Union have felt for years, namely that the Jewish problem in the Soviet Union cannot be solved by assimilation or de-Judaization.

“On the other hand, Mr. Khrushchev’s skepticism about collective Jewish existence for the Jews of the Soviet Union is incompatible with the record. After 40 years in which an enforced assimilation policy was imposed on Soviet Jewry, this policy failed and is no longer even referred toby Mr, Khrushchev. But the Jewish nationality in the Soviet Union is not permitted any expression of its national existence, such as is accorded to other nationalities in the Soviet Union, ” Dr. Goldmann stressed.

EXPRESSES CONCERN OVER KHRUSHCHEV’S CHARACTERIZATION OF JEWS

The world Jewish leader emphasized in his article that Khrushchev’s characterization of the Jews as “essentially intellectual” gives cause for concern. Wherever such generalizations have been made, ” Dr. Goldmann wrote, “they have always been accompanied by an attempt to discriminate against Jews, as such, by imposing restrictions of one Kind or another on their entry into universities or the professions. One cannot help reading between the lines of Mr. Khrushchev’s statement on this point a justification of the numerous complaints that reach us from the Soviet Union, that in practice the right of Jews to secure a higher education is being restricted.

“That means in effect that the Jewish nationality in the Soviet Union is deprived of all the positive attributes of nationality, ” Dr. Goldmann continued. “It cannot come to the national center in Israel; it cannot organize its national cultural life as it wishes–but at the same time it is left with all the negative aspects of its national existence, namely restriction for individual Jews to develop as they wish and the impossibility of assimilation. That constitutes the basic description of the nature of the Jewish problem, in the Soviet Union, whose existence Mr. Khrushchev has now recognized. It must be emphasized that this is not the situation in other Communist countries, such as Poland, where Jews do enjoy the positive rights of nationality, such as immigration to Israel and the right of cultural organization and self-expression.”

Dr. Goldmann expressed regret over the fact that Stalin’s successors have so far done nothing to make it possible for the liquidated Jewish cultural institutions in the Soviet Union to revive, even though many requests for this have been made on the part of the Jewish writers and poets that still survive. “There are still writers in the Soviet Union producing works in Yiddish, which they cannot publish, ” he stated. “It is also Known that the Soviet government has before it applications to permit the revival of the Jewish theater, the establishment of a newspaper and a Jewish literary publication, as well as the creation of a Jewish publishing house. All these applications have so far been rejected. “