Senate, House Hear Denunciations of Soviet Treatment of Jews

Senator Jacob Javits of New York told the Senate again today that Russian Jews were being made “the economic scapegoats” by Soviet authorities.

It was the second time in less than a month that the Senator had taken the floor to point up the situation facing Russia’s Jewish Community.

In his speech today, the New York Republican said that new evidences of the crisis facing Soviet Jewry were the recent reports of death sentences for currency speculation in black markets against four Jews in Vilna and 12 within the USSR itself. “There is a long and tragic series of these, ” Sen. Javits said.

The Senator said that although Kremlin authorities “have been very sensitive to any alleged anti-Semitism” and hence try to “identify these people being tried without actually being tagged anti-Semitic, ” the reports themselves “negate this attempt.” “I think this, if anything, is the same thing dressed up in different clothes, with a very calculated effort being made to identify Jews as enemies of the Soviet people in terms of these black marketing activities,” Javits said. “Apparently these authorities are trying to warn people against currency speculation in black markets, but the means chosen can only lead to serious consequences for Jews as a group in the USSR.”

Rep. Herbert Zelenko, New York City Democrat, taking up the same theme in the House, said yesterday that he had urged the United States delegation to the United Nations to introduce a resolution censuring the Soviet Union “for the violation of its obligations under the United Nations Charter in that it has persecuted its Jewish citizens and those of other faiths because of religion.”

He said that the Soviet Union “exposed its perfidy” by persecuting Jewish citizens solely for their religious beliefs. He added he was “happy to report” that the Department of State “has taken cognizance of this derogation of human rights of the Soviet Union.”