Jewish Congress Asks U.N. to Act on Anti-jewish Bias in Russia

The World Jewish Congress today submitted a note to the United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination which is currently considering a draft report on a study of discrimination in religious rights and practices.

The WJC note cited discrimination against Jewish religion in the Soviet Union and in Saudi Arabia. It pointed out that in contrast to other Islamic lands, Saudi Arabia totally prohibited observance of Judaism and limited the practice of other religions.

Emphasizing that this was irreconcilable with obligations assumed under the UN Charter, the WJC said that the United States, as a result of direct association with Saudi Arabia, “finds itself in the embarrassing position of applying Saudian doctrines of discrimination in the selection of America personnel, military and civil, for missions which are dispatched to Saudi Arabia.”

Charging that in comparison with other groups, the religious Jew in Russia is “a victim of special discrimination, “the WJC said that for an estimated Jewish population of three million, “there are only isolated synagogues, the sole survivors of the once complex organizational life of Russian Jewry, and each is compelled to fend for itself.” While other denominational groups are allowed national organizations, representative bodies with periodicals, religious literature and theological seminaries, “no such facilities are afforded the Jewish religious community.”

There had been some “minor concessions” recently–a small theological seminary was opened last year in Moscow, and a prayer book was reproduced. But this was wholly inadequate for the urgent needs of the Jewish population, the WJC armed. To the Soviet assertion that the Jews have not asked for facilities similar to other religious communities, the WJC declared this was an answer that could scarcely be expected to carry conviction in relation to a state where “deviations from official policy can carry severe penalties.”

With the destruction in 1948 of organized Jewish cultural life and the disappearance of Jewish cultural leaders, “the failure of a leaderless Jewry to demand the redress of the wrongs they have suffered is hardly surprising,” the WJC noted. It stressed the fact that not a single Jewish leader eliminated in the Stalin era had been publicly rehabilitated in the post-Stalin period.

Pointing to the existence of Jewish religious bodies in Yugoslavia, Poland and Hungary, the WJC said its appeal to the Soviet authorities to grant religious Jewry the same facilities as other religious bodies was not motivated by any desire to criticize general Russian policies.