Arthur Calwell, former Australian Labor Party leader, disclosed here that he had urged Soviet authorities, during a recent visit to Russia, to allow Jewish families with relatives in Israel to join them there.
He also said that anti-Semitism existed in the Soviet Union partly as a result of the Israel “problem” and partly because of a “black streak” in many Russians stemming from the Czarist period. He asserted that Russians considered Jews as a “vestigial anachronism” and that they wanted them to leave, on the one hand, but were afraid of losing the “significant contributions” made by Jews to Russia, on the other.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.