The view that Soviet Jews have no future in their country, and in fact, suffered nothing but persecution there in the past, was expressed by Israeli officials at the opening of a pictorial exhibition on Soviet Jewry at ZOA House here today. Benjamin Eliav, secretary general of the Israel Labor Party said “One need not be a Zionist to reach the conclusion that there is no future for the Jewish nation in Russia.” M. Hazani, the Deputy Minister of Education contended that the situation in Russia today was a “revival of the Spanish inquisition where Jews were forced to repudiate their religion.” These statements were made as reports reached here from Moscow of a continuing campaign by Soviet officials to get Russian Jews to repudiate Israel. A statement denouncing Zionism and declaring that “the real motherland of Soviet Jews is our native Soviet Union” was published in the Government newspaper Izvestia yesterday over the signatures of Il rabbis. Among them was Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin, of Moscow’s Choral Synagogue, the only rabbi in the USSR whose name is widely known abroad. The other signatories were rabbis from Leningrad, Baku, Odessa, Kuibyshev and Novozybkov. Also listed were the names of cantors and Jewish lay leaders from those cities.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
