Kremlin Determined to Isolate Jews from Contact with West

Developments behind the Iron Curtain make it evident “that the Kremlin has grave doubts about Jewish loyalty to Soviet Communism and is determined to cut off remaining Jewish ties with the West, ” according to a review of the situation by the National Committee for a Free Europe, which sponsors Radio Free Europe.

Removal of Jews from leading Communist posts and suppression of various Jewish organizations are two of the methods of the Communists have used to curtail Jewish influence, the survey reports. “In carrying out this program, the Communists have not ignored the advantages of using Jews as scapegoats for internal failures or as tools in foreign policy; they have not only played on anti-Semitic feelings, but have used them to intensify the hate campaign against the West, ” it declares.

In a special report on conditions in the Rumanian People’s Republic, the committee declares that the recent campaign against “cosmopolitanism,” “bourgeois internationalism” and “Zionism” has “become a wholly anti-Semitic campaign.” The Rumanian Zionist leaders, Marco Beneviste and Jacques Kummer are now under indictment awaiting trial for alleged collaboration with Western intelligence services, it reports.

“Jews in Rumania are caught between two fires,” according to information reaching the committee. “On the one hand, they are persecuted by the State, which accuses them of nationalist and Zionist sentiments, and on the other they bear the resentment of anti-Semitic groups who blame all their ills on the Jews.

“Refugee reports indicate that the removal of Ana Pauker and other Jewish leaders from the Rumanian Politburo (possibly another manifestation of anti-Semitism) was welcomed with ‘indescribable relief’ by the Rumanian Jewish community,” the committee says in its survey.