Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, asked the WJC executive committee here today to continue giving him its confidence in the handling of the problem of Soviet Jewry. The Congress must use “a discreet but efficient policy” on the issue, he said.
His request for continued confidence came after a number of the delegates criticized him during the executive committee’s political debate last night. They expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which he had summarized the Soviet Jewish situation in his opening address to the executive meeting last Sunday.
Isi Leiber, of Australia, called on the Congress to “dramatize” the issue of Soviet Jewry in world forums, and to cease adopting a passive attitude toward the entire problem of the religious and cultural expression of Jewry in the USSR. Among the opponents of Dr. Goldmann’s views on the issue was also Bezalel Sherman, one of the American delegates. One hundred delegates from 30 countries are attending the executive meeting.
SOVIET GOVERNMENT PERMITS JEWS TO JOIN RELATIVES IN SWEDEN
Hillel Storch, secretary-general of the Swedish section of the World Jewish Congress, informed the WJC that the USSR has, for some time, permitted Russian Jews to emigrate to Sweden for purposes of family reunification, and that “several hundred more are due to arrive in Sweden from the Soviet Union in the next few months.”
Mr. Storch said he received this information from Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander, who had visited Moscow earlier this month. The Premier informed him, Mr. Storch said, that Soviet leaders assured him the emigration of Russian Jews who want to be reunited with their families in Sweden would continue. Premier Erlander told the WJC representative that he had pointed out to the Soviet leaders that this policy had been begun after the visit to Stockholm by former USSR Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev
Under Khrushchev, Mr. Erlander was reported as stating, 300 persons had emigrated from the USSR to Sweden. Last year, after the fall of Khrushchev, 165 entered Swedish under that policy.
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