Hoffman Condemns New Trial; Assails Violent Tactics by Some As Counterproductive

Philip E Hoffman, president of the American Jewish Committee, sharply condemning the new trials of Jews in Soviet Russia, tonight called for renewed efforts to mobilize world opinion to expose violations of human rights there. In an address prepared for the agency’s 65th annual dinner here, he criticized the new and projected trials of Jews in Kishinev, Leningrad, Riga and Odease. Urgiag renewed public efforts in condemnation of these trials. Hoffman pointed out that Soviet authorities had reacted to “the dramatic impact of the human outcry across nations and continents at the time of the Leningrad trials several months ago.” Hoffman, who played a prominent role at the recent Brussels world conference of Jewish communities on Soviet Jewry, pointed out that the Russians had reacted to that “historic public demonstration to seek freedom for Soviet Jewry.”

At the same time, Hoffman criticized the “practitioners of violence” among those opposing Soviet persecution of its Jews. Their acts, he continued “must be 100 percent counterproductive. They can only blur the mirror, reflecting it away from the fearsome problems of the Jews in Russia. They only divert criticism from the Soviet Union to themselves.” He cautioned that the Soviet Union might drastically reduce the numbers of Soviet Jews allowed to emigrate. He added that information made available by the Paris office of the AJCommittee indicated that Jews who applied to leave the Soviet Union and whose applications were rejected were being “penalized by harrassment, unemployment and hostile social pressures.” Turning to efforts to achieve a settlement between Israel and the Arab states. Hoffman warned that “no real peace can be imposed by parties not privy to the dispute.” He expressed gratification at the American government’s support of “a safe and secure Israel,” but cautioned that Israel’s firm stand for a permanent peace rather than a return to “the conditions that produced three wars” might make her less popular in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Dealing with domestic concerns, Hoffman praised the majority of American youth for its attempts to effect social change through voluntarism. He termed the present young generation as one “convinced of the strength of private efforts to effect national policy, social values, the essential quality of society. Granted some take to the streets for purely destructive reasons–and, as we have seen, they are eventually abandoned and condemned by their peers. But the majority are a force for progress–precisely in the American tradition and in the tradition of this American Jewish Committee. They do not lack goals–but tragically they do lack leadership.” Hoffman also expressed pleasure at the growth of interreligious understanding, especially the ecumenical movement flowing out of Vatican Council II. “In Catholic and Protestant circles–both international and domestic–bodies are now at work seeking to eradicate the prejudices of the past, perpetuated through religious teachings and to determine how the various religions may work together to ameliorate the human condition,” he stated.