Resolutions declaring that the Israel-Arab deadlock should be solved by direct negotiations between the parties concerned and demanding that Soviet authorities end discrimination against Russian Jews were adopted today by delegates to a conference of the Latin American Jewish Congress. Jewish communal leaders from eight countries and representatives of Zionist and Jewish youth groups from many nations attended the three-day conclave.
The delegates paid homage to Ilya Ripps, a Jewish youth who was reported to have immolated himself in April in Riga in protest against the situation of the Jews in Soviet Russia and Soviet satellite countries. The delegates also registered an “energetic protest” against the condition of Jews in Poland and in the Arab countries.
The delegates approved creation of new committees, one on continental public relations and one on community problems. They also agreed to convene a second plenary session of the Congress in Lima, Peru in October to coincide with the centennial of the Peruvian Jewish community.
The “deep concern” of Argentine Jewry over the fate of Ilya Ripps was conveyed today in a letter to Soviet Ambassador Youry Volksi by the DAIA, the central representative body of Argentine Jews. The letter said that the report had “strongly affected Argentine Jewry, intensifying its perturbation about the difficult situation of Russian Jews.” The letter asked the envoy to provide more detail on the immolation attempt, particularly the present condition of the youth, whose death from the action had been reported without confirmation.
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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.
