A memorandum asking for information on the situation of the Jews of the Soviet Union has been submitted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews to the Soviet Embassy here, together with a covering letter signed by British Chief Rabbi Dr. Israel Brodie and Board president Barnett Janner, it was announced today.
The announcement noted that the memorandum was submitted after the Board had been informed by the Soviet authorities that its request for a meeting between a Board delegation and Soviet Premier Bulganin and Communist Party chief Khrushchev could not be granted because of the already tight schedule of the visiting Soviet leaders.
The letter from Dr. Brodie and Mr. Janner asked for a reply “in due course” from the Soviet Government. The memorandum expressed the interest of the British Jewish community in the religious, cultural and national situation of Soviet Jewry; its recognition of certain improvements in that situation as manifested by such developments as the opening of new synagogues, the printing of prayer books, the appearance of Jewish singers at Jewish concerts and the permission given a number of Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union to join their relatives in Israel, and urged the extension of these facilities in the same and other directions.
The World Jewish Congress, in a separate memorandum sent to the Soviet leaders, expressed “sorrow and disappointment” over the isolation of Soviet Jewry and the “drastic deterioration of Jewish communal life in the USSR. Jewish places of worship have dwindled in number, institutions for religious study and scholarship have largely vanished and the formerly flourishing Jewish theatre, art, literature and press have become extinct.” The memorandum proposed the following suggestions for a restoration of Jewish cultural and religious life in the Soviet Union:
That the Soviet Jews be permitted to re-establish their religious, cultural and artistic institutions so they can pursue their religion and cultural life; that they be allowed to resume contact with Jews and Jewish organizations abroad; that they be permitted to print and distribute religious literature and the works of Jewish writers on Jewish subjects and periodicals in Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish; that they be granted facilities to join relatives in Israel and other countries. The document also asks that the memories of Jewish writers executed for crimes of which the Communist press now admits they were innocent, should be officially vindicated.
The Agudas Israel world executive revealed here today that it, too, had made a request for a meeting with the Soviet leaders and had been told that their schedule would not permit it, and that the question of Jewish and Middle East problems had already been raised with the Soviet leaders in various quarters in London. The Agudah disclosed that it had submitted a request to send a delegation to visit the USSR.
The Association of Jewish Journalists and Writers, at a meeting here last night, adopted a resolution for submission to the Soviet authorities requesting that the USSR re-establish Jewish cultural life in both Yiddish and Hebrew and that it release those persons who had been imprisoned for Yiddish and Hebrew “sins.” The resolution called for the facilitation of cultural interchanges between Soviet Jewry and the Jews of other countries, and for free emigration of Soviet Jews who wish to leave the country.
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