Moscow’s New Anti-jewish Charges Provoke Concern in Israel

The Moscow charges that “Jewish terrorist doctors” had plotted against the lives of Soviet leaders and had killed Andrei Zhdanov, once seen as a possible successor to Joseph Stalin, have depressed Jews throughout Israel and have caused them to fear for the future safety of the Jews in the Soviet Union.

The charges and comments on them dominate the front pages of every newspaper in the country. Practically the only subject of conversation in public places are the Moscow arrests. The general sentiment, in the press and among the people, is that this is the point at which the Soviet authorities have adopted an official anti-Jewish line in the U.S.S.R. itself. The newspaper headlines today reported the charges under banner heads of “Ritual Murder Libel in Moscow.”

The labor newspaper Hador likened the Soviet “plot” discovery to the trial in Russia of the Jew Mendel Beilis 40 years ago, during the Czarist regime, on charges of having committed ritual murder. But, said the newspaper, “then Beilis rejected the charges and was finally acquitted. Today, according to the reports, the accused have already confessed to receiving orders from the Joint Distribution Committee.” Other newspapers charge that the latest Moscow charges are aimed at purging the Red Army of Jewish doctors.

The Israeli Medical Association today called on Jewish physicians and scientists throughout the world to unite in protest against the defamatory campaign launched against Soviet Jewish doctors and the Jewish philanthropic agency.

The left-wing Mapam, already badly split over the Prague trial and the recent charges of Zionist “espionage” in East Germany, was hit even harder by today’s news. Leaders of the party were described as “astonished” by the charges.