The Soviet Government is sincerely interested in uprooting anti-Semitism, it was reported here today by Rabbi Mordecai Nurok, a leader of the World Mizrachi Organization and of the World Jewish Congress, who has just arrived in the United States from the USSR where he had resided since 1939, after Latvia, of which he was chief rabbi, became a part of the Soviet Union.
Rabbi Nurok, who was a member of the Latvian parliament, addressed a press conference arranged by the World Jewish Congress at which Louis Segal and Dr. Zorach Wainhaftig reported on conditions of Jews in Poland, from which they returned this week. “It must be emphasized that several hundred thousand Polish and other Jews round a haven from the Nazis in the USSR,” he stated. He also pointed out that there are many Jewish generals in the Soviet Army and that there is complete equality of heights for Jews in Russia.
Mr. Segal and Dr. Wainhaftig reported that averages of 1,500 Jews weekly are now being repatriated to Poland from the USSR. The majority of them are in urgent need of food, clothing and medical aid. The arrival of the Polish Jews from the USSR does not increase the total number of Jews in Poland, since an equal number of Jews leave Poland regularly for the U.S. zone of Germany, Segal said.
He emphasized that the Polish Government is doing all it can to curb anti-Semitic feelings in the country, but said that the majority of the Poles are making life unbearable for the surviving Jews. The only solution to the Jewish problem in Poland is emigration, Segal declared.
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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.
