In an apparent attempt to justify the death sentences handed down in recent trials against Jews charged with “economic crimes,” the Soviet Union’s Novosti press agency this weekend published letters from Soviet Jews supporting the harsh verdict of the Moscow court last week and referring to the Jews involved as “scum” and “riffraff, ” it was reported here today from Moscow,
The Novosti report, which was circulated among foreign newsmen in Moscow but was not published locally, cited statements by one Igor Sirkovich, said to be a Jewish schoolteacher in Moldavia and one O. Revutsky, who was identified only as a Jew living in Zagorsk near Moscow.
Meanwhile, a Soviet Lithuanian newspaper highlighted Judaism in an exhortation to atheists to accelerate their fight on all religions in the Soviet Union, another report from Moscow stated.
“At the present moment Judaism is carrying on a persistent struggle for the separation of the Jewish population from the workers of other nationalities, is trying to make the Jewish youth believe that their motherland is not here, that Jews are in a special position,” the Lithuanian Soviet organ asserted.
It advised atheists to remember that their main target should be the dominant Catholic church in the area but that Orthodoxy and Judaism should not be forgotten in the battle for the minds of the young. It stressed that much progress had been made in the direction of atheism in Lithuania but that “our atheists are absolutely insufficiently exposing reactionary efforts of Judaism.”
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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.
