Dr. Nahum Goldmann warned today that action should be taken against the danger that Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union will be halted once the most vocal Jewish groups and individuals have departed from that country. He said further that he believed the number of Jewish immigrants from the USSR will be numbered in the tens of thousands rather than in the hundreds of thousands.
His remarks on Jewish emigration from Russia, made at a press conference here, were similar to those he made before the Board of Deputies of British Jews in London last Dec. As a result of his remarks then, the World Zionist Organization Executive cancelled his address to the 28th World Zionist Congress. Dr. Goldmann was accused at the time of playing down the primacy of aliya when he said that a majority of Jews will remain in the Soviet Union and that efforts must be made to protect their religious and cultural rights in the Soviet society.
Dr. Goldmann’s current three-day visit to Israel is his first since his controversial speech. He is here to participate in a memorial meeting for the late Lord Sieff of Brimpton and to appear on a television panel on Soviet Jews. The World Jewish Congress president is also marking the publication here of the Hebrew translation of his memoires. They have already been published in English, French and German. Asked to comment on the cancellation of his Zionist Congress address, Goldmann said it was “an inelegant gesture.”
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