Nazis, Fascists and Communists, should be excluded with equal rigor from the United States under the bill pending in Congress for admission of 240,000 refugees and displaced persons, 36 national and local Jewish organizations urged today.
In a letter to Senator Arthur V. Watkins, who sponsored the bill, the National Community Relations Advisory Council expressed dissatisfaction on behalf of the 36 groups, with the security provisions of the measure as they now stand. Those provisions rigorously exclude Communists but are much less severe with regard to Nazis and Fascists. The Jewish organizations urged that all should be barred equally.
The NCRAC suggested that a provision already approved by the Senate as part of another pending measure be substituted for the present provision in the Watkins Bill. The provision recommended by the Jewish organizations would exclude all members and former members of all Nazi, Fascist, or Communist organizations, unless they could prove that their membership had been involuntary or that they had been under 16 at the time and that they had been for at least five years sincerely opposed to totalitarian ideologies.
The NCRAC emphasized that it was conveying the views of the American Jewish Congress, the Jewish Labor Committee, the Jewish War Veterans, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the United Synagogue of America and 30 Jewish community councils throughout the country. All are constituents of the National Community Relations Advisory Council.
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