A novel, described by one Jewish leader here today as more anti-Semitic than anything written so far by the rabid anti-Semitic Russian writer Trofim Kichko, is being Serialized in the mass circulation Soviet literary magazine “Oktiabr,” the Jewish Labor Committee reported.
The Russian-language magazine, which is available in the United States, carried a 200-page abridgements of the novel, “The Promised Land,” by Yuri Kolesnikov in its Sept. and Oct. editions. An introductory note by the magazine’s editors said the novel was to be published shortly by the Pravda publishing house, publishers of the Soviet Communist Party’s daily newspaper, Pravda. The note said the magazine was publishing the abridgement in advance because it was vital that the subject matter receive the widest possible circulation.
The book, which is fiction purported to be based on fact, alleges that the liquidation of six million Jews during World War II was part of an arrangement between the Zionists and the-Nazis. The author alleges that the pact called for the Nazis to send young, healthy Jews to Palestine while the Zionists refused to allow others to come
The author claims the Zionists rejected a proposal by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to admit one million Jews to the U.S., that Mussolini and Eichmann were Zionist agents, and that the Reich’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels acted as an intermediary between Hitler and the Zionists.
FEAR NEW ANTI-SEMITIC CAMPAIGN
The novel, which describes the experiences of a fictional Jewish character, Chaim Volbiter, who emigrates from Bessarabia to Palestine in 1940, denounces Judaism and describes rabbis as mass murderers, Gestapo agents and pimps.
In a statement issued today, Judge Jacob T. Zuckerman, president of the Jewish Labor Committee, said that “the publication by a propaganda agency of the Soviet Communist Party of a virulent anti-Semitic book” was “cause to fear that a new, intensified anti-Semitic campaign will follow” in the USSR. Zuckerman observed that the book could not have been published without the express approval of the Communist Party’s Central Committee.
Zuckerman said “The Promised Land” was more slanderous of Jews and Judaism than “Judaism” Without Embellishment” by Kichko, the Ukrainian philosophy professor. The latter book, published in Kiev in 1963, was subsequently withdrawn from circulation by the Soviet authorities following protests from Jews and non-Jews all over the world. Zuckerman urged all decent people to protest to the Soviet authorities against the latest anti-Semitic out pouring.
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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.
