Miller Says He Has Assurances U.S. Will Intervene on Behalf of Jewish Community in Syria

Rabbi Israel Miller, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said here today that he had assurances that the U.S. government would intervene on humanitarian grounds on behalf of the persecuted Jewish community in Syria. The plight of Syrian Jews will become the central point of activity of all Jewish bodies in the U.S. whose ultimate goal is the emigration of all Jews from Syria, Rabbi Miller declared at a press conference here.

He said, “We have been assured by a very senior personality in the State Department that the question of Syrian Jews would be taken up with the Syrians on every possible instance.” He added, however, that it must be taken into consideration that the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Syria and that the problem of Syrian Jews must be tackled apart from the disengagement talks.

Rabbi Miller questioned the authenticity of a letter purported to have been written by U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to an Israeli woman formerly imprisoned in Syria to the effect that the situation of Syrian Jews was “a Syrian internal matter.” He said that quite to the contrary, the Conference of Presidents was convinced that U.S. policy is that human problems have no boundaries.

Rabbi Miller said that since he arrived in Israel he had met with a senior member of Kissinger’s entourage and was given grounds to assume that the question of Syrian Jews was prominent in Kissinger’s talks with Syrian leaders in Damascus. He said he had agreed not to identify the American official. Conference leaders, who have had several meetings with Kissinger in Washington since last Dec., expect to meet with him again when he returns from the Middle East.