Goldmann Says He Backs Demonstrations Against Soviet Anti-jewish Policy

Dr. Nahum Goldmann reiterated here today that he had consistently supported demonstrations and protests over the Soviet suppression of Russian Jewry’s religion and culture but that he also insisted that such actions be based on facts.

His comments on his arrival here were the latest development in an international dispute touched off by a press conference he held in New York on June 10 in which he cautioned against “distortions” in Jewish-sponsored protests on behalf of Soviet Jewry. He declared at the airport on his arrival this morning that the Israeli press enunciations of him were based on reports which were inadequate and which did not give a true picture of what he said on June 10.

Insisting that his remarks concerned the form of treating the issue and not the issue of protests per se, he said he had always supported explanatory campaigns on the situation of Soviet Jewry vis-a-vis other minorities in the Soviet Union. He said that the word “genocide” had been used in some protests and asserted that this was untrue as a description of what was happening to Russian Jewry. He said that the explanation that this referred to “intellectual genocide” failed to meet his criticism because people took that word for its usual meaning and that he had therefore spoken out on the matter.

Indicating he was angry over the Israeli reaction, he asserted that it was he who had started the campaign of public protests on the issue. He said also that no one could forbid the head of an organization like the World Jewish Congress, of which he is president, from expressing his views. He added that he could not consult or receive instructions on such questions from the Israel Government and that he knows that both Premier Levi Eshkol and Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, shared his view on the appropriate form of activity on behalf of Soviet Jewry.