Jewish Congress Asks Mikoyan to Act on His Assurances to Soviet Jewry

The American Jewish Congress today called on Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan to go beyond his assurances of friendship for Soviet Jewry by supporting the restoration of facilities “essential” to preserving cultural and religious life among Russia’s 3,000,000 Jews.

In a resolution the Congress welcomed what it termed the “friendly sentiments” expressed by Mr. Mikoyan regarding Soviet Jewry but said such assurances are not responsible to the need for “basic facilities necessary for Jewish life in the U. S. S. R.” Such facilities are granted to other religious and cultural minorities in Russia but have been denied to Jews since shortly after World War II, the AJC charged. It urged Mr. Mikoyan to declare himself affirmatively on these questions:

1. Is the Soviet government prepared to grant Jewish religious congregations in Russia the same facilities granted to other minority religious groups? Such facilities would include the opportunity; to form a national body of Jewish congregations; to maintain contact with organized Jewish religious groups in other parts of the world; to publish prayer books, religious calendars and other religious materials; to train rabbis and other religious functionaries.

2. Is the Soviet government prepared to grant to Jews the same facilities it grants to other ethnic minority groups in Russia? Such facilities would include the opportunity: to establish Jewish cultural institutions, including schools, theatre groups, lecture forums, etc.; to publish newspapers in the Yiddish language; to publish Yiddish and Hebrew literary works.

3. Is the Soviet government prepared to allow those Jews in Russia who have close relatives in Israel, the United States and elsewhere, and who seek to rejoin their families, the right to do so? Such a right is granted by the Soviet-bloc countries of Rumania and Poland.

The action was taken at a quarterly meeting of the AJC national administrative and executive committees. In a special report to the AJC body, Dr. Joachim Prinz, national president, said that while religious Jewry in Russia suffers in common with the adherents of all other religions from the basic anti-religious policy of the Soviet government, Jews are the victims of “special discrimination” by comparison with other grounds.

(Israel Ambassador Abba Eban is among a group of top-ranking diplomats invited by the Soviet Embassy to a reception here tomorrow for Anastas Mikoyan, First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union. Mr. Mikoyan is scheduled to fly home Tuesday.)