Sen. Henry M. Jackson said today that detente with the Soviet Union “should reflect progress in the area of human rights” and that in that area “free emigration is first among equals.” The Washington Democrat discussed the problem of free emigration for Jews and others in the Soviet Union in an address delivered at the 42nd annual commencement exercises of Yeshiva University. The legislator, who is the author of legislation linking U.S.-Soviet trade with emigration rights for Soviet citizens, was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
Other honorary doctorates awarded by Yeshiva University today included doctorates in humane letters to Dr. Jean Piaget, the Swiss child psychologist, and to Elie Wiesel, the author. Some 400 bachelor’s, 229 master’s and 70 doctoral degrees, and 115 certificates and diplomas were conferred upon graduates of ten of the university’s undergraduate, graduate and professional schools. The occasion also marked the 30th anniversary of the appointment of Dr. Samuel Belkin to the presidency of Yeshiva University.
Jackson told his audience that he was in daily receipt of appeals “often written and communicated at great risk” from “innocent men and women whose only desire is to emigrate from behind the Iron Curtain.” Many of them are from Jews, he said. “I am proud as an American that it is to America that these brave people have turned. For us, a nation of immigrants, to turn our backs on them in the interests of the most shallow notion of detente–or worse yet, in the blind pursuit of profits from trade–would be a betrayal equalled only by our abject silence in the 1930s.”
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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.
