Schindler: Carter’s Criticism of Human Rights in USSR is Not Responsible for Hiked Harassment

Rabbi Alexander Schindler, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said today that President Carter’s recent criticism of the state of human rights in the Soviet Union did not bring about the “vilification of Jews” by the Soviet government or was responsible for the harassment and persecution of Jewish dissidents and emigration activists in the USSR. (See P. 3 for related story.)

“I do not believe President Carter’s statements in any sense can be linked to the vilification of Jews,” Schindler told reporters at the State Department following a 40-minute meeting with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. He said, in reply to questions, that the barring of symposia on Jewish culture in the Soviet Union, the screening of anti-Semitic films on Soviet television and the beatings of Jews on park benches in Soviet cities all occurred before the President “said a solitary word on Soviet Jews.”

The Jewish leader told reporters that there is a distinction between human rights and the issue of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. He called them “problems apart” and said “I don’t like to link these two problems.” Schindler pointed out that under existing Soviet laws, emigration is possible while Soviet dissidents want to change the laws. He declined to discuss the details of his talk with Vance who leaves for Moscow tomorrow night at the head of a 14-member delegation for wide-ranging discussions with Soviet officials on global problems.

Schindler was accompanied at his meeting with the Secretary by Eugene Gold, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and Yehuda Hellman, executive director of the Presidents Conference. Their meeting was the third in less than a week between American Jewish leaders and high level Administration officials. Last Friday, 10 religious leaders met with Vance and on Monday leaders of the American Jewish Committee had separate meetings at the White House with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the President’s National Security Advisor, and Presidential Counsel Robert J. Lipshutz.

These discussions were said to range over international matters, including the Middle East, Soviet Jewry and human rights and domestic concerns, such as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano’s reported leaning toward quotas for minority groups.

BREZHNEV’S REMARKS NO CAUSE FOR JOY

Vance’s meetings with Soviet officials in Moscow are expected to be tense because of Carter’s recent human rights statements with which Soviet leaders have expressed displeasure. Asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency if Jewish emigration would be on the agenda of Vance’s meetings in Moscow, the State Department spokesman Frederick Z. Brown said he would not discuss details of the agenda.

Questioned by reporters, Schindler took a skeptical view of Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev’s remarks on the Middle East during a speech Monday to the Soviet Trade Union Congress. He indicated that he didn’t think they implied a softening of the Soviet attitude toward Israel. Schindler said that the text of Brezhnev’s speech “demonstrates that while their entire stance has been put in a more palatable form, when you analyze it in its fullness and with some care, you see there has been very little substantial movement in any direction. I can’t understand what all the jubilation is about.”