A Los Angeles Conference on Soviet anti-Semitism was held here tonight under auspices of the Jewish Federation-Council of Greater Los Angeles. The conference was sponsored by local affiliates of 24 organizations.
The public event was part of a national effort to follow up on the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry held last April in Washington to protest Soviet mistreatment of Russian Jews. Label A, Katz, president of B’nai B’rith, was the principal speaker. Edward G. Robinson presented a dramatic reading of the original version of the poem “Babi Yar” by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the young Soviet poet, which describes the Nazi slaughter of thousands of Jews near Kiev. The poem was widely interpreted in the west as a denunciation of continuing anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.
The conference adopted a series of resolutions calling on Soviet authorities to permit Russian Jews to produce and distribute religious articles, matzoth, kosher food, and to allow them to carry on other religious and cultural activities.
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