A call for a halt to anti-Semitic practices all over the world and a plea to the USSR to extend facilities to the country’s 3, 000, 000 Jews for religious and cultural self-expression were made by World Jewish Congress leaders from the Mexican, Central American and Caribbean region at the close of a three-day conference here today.
The conference was attended by Jewish leaders from Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Surinam and Venezuela. It was the first time that the World Jewish Congress had convened such a regional meeting in the Mexican capital. The convention called on member states of Interpol, the International Police Organization, to effect a change in that body’s constitution so that it can participate in the hunt for Nazi criminals still at large.
In its resolution on Soviet Jewry, the WJC conference expressed regret “that the Jews of the Soviet Union are still denied the facilities for religious and cultural self-expression, or forming a coordinating body for the conduct of communal affairs, and of contact with Jewish communities in other countries.” Deploring the closing down of houses of worship in various parts of the USSR, the resolution appealed to the Soviet Union “on humanitarian grounds to enable the reunion of families broken up by the in human policy carried out by the Fascist-Nazi rulers during the war.”
Expressing appreciation for the series of resolutions adopted by United Nations bodies condemning anti-Semitism, racial prejudice and religious and national intolerance in any form, the WJC leaders called on “governments to take the necessary steps to fulfill the purposes of these resolutions in their countries.”
Other resolutions paid tribute to Israel, pledged the participating communities to work for the unity of Jews all over the world, particularly in the Mexican, Central American and Caribbean area; and urged the World Jewish Congress to take steps to help the various communities meet their cultural needs and support them “in their endeavors to retain and strengthen the Jewish content of their day-to-day lives.”
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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.
