Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Sen. Javits Reports on Jews in Russia; Urges U.S. Government to Act

December 21, 1961
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Senator Jacob K. Javits, New York Republican, said tonight that on his recent visit to the Soviet Union he found “a determined governmental policy against allowing Soviet Jews who wish to do so from migrating to Israel.”

Speaking at the annual dinner here of the American Technion Society, Senator Javits said that the prosecutions of Jewish religious lay leaders in Moscow and Leningrad were “widely interpreted as a warning to Jews in the Soviet Union against any idea of emigration to Israel.” He said it called for “great protest not only from individual nations like the United States but also from the United Nations.”

He also criticized the U.S. for “failure to espouse the basic demand for direct peace negotiations in the Near East between the Arab states and Israel, as urged by the 16-nation resolution of African and Latin American nations and The Netherlands.” He told the dinner guests that the measure failed in the Assembly’s Special Political Committee when the United States opposed it and said that opposition was “difficult to understand.”

He noted that the Democratic party’s 1960 national platform called for “direct Arab-Israel peace negotiations” and that the Republican party platform asked “for negotiations for a mutually acceptable settlement of the causes of tension” between Israel and the Arab states.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement