Hope that Prime Minister Bruno Kreisky of Austria would rescind the decision that would close Schoenau and allow the continuation of emigration of Russian Jews to Israel through Vienna was expressed today by Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson, chairman of the World Zionist Organization-American Section.
“Post-war Austria,” Mrs. Jacobson said, “has had an admirable record of hospitality to refugees and has played a most helpful role in the emigration to Israel of over 70,000 Russian Jews in the past few years. We trust that the Austrian Prime Minister will not blacken this record by capitulating to terrorist demands.” She added:
“While we understand the Prime Minister’s concern for the safety of his people, he must surely realize that neither the Austrian people nor any nation in the world can be safe if governments yield to blackmail and permit their policies to be shaped by terrorist violence.”
Herman L. Weisman, president of the Zionist Organization of America, sent a telegram to the Austrian Embassy in Washington stating that “capitulation to an act of terrorism, perpetrated by two gangsters, constitutes a cowardly act tantamount to abject surrender of sovereignty. Austria thereby allies itself with the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people.” In a telegram to President Nixon, the ZOA leader urged Nixon, “in the promotion of international resistance to world terrorism, to make appropriate representations to the government of Austria to the end that it continue its earlier position in facilitating emigration from Russia.”
Dr. Judah J. Shapiro, president of the Labor Zionist Alliance, called on the Austrian government to reconsider its decision and expressed the hope that the action, “taken at the moment of tension, will be reversed.” He added: “For a sovereign nation to have so easily undertaken obligation to known terrorists who have discredited themselves by acts of murder and sabotage, diminishes further the sovereign statues of Austria. We must hope that the heroic struggle of Soviet Jewry to gain its freedom will not be sabotaged by a free country.”
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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.
