Soviet Jews contribute to Soviet scientific achievements all out of proportion to their numbers in the Soviet population the Associated Press reported today. The dispatch, by Thomas P. Whitney, AP foreign news analyst, said that while the Jews make up one in 70 Soviet citizens, one in every nine Soviet Scientists is a Jew.
The Soviet Government does not like to admit this fact, the AP dispatch said Citing the official 1955 Soviet handbook “Cultural Construction in the USSR ” which lists 24,620 Jews among the 223, 893 Soviet scientific research workers, the AP said that in a statistical study put out on the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution last November the Jews were omitted entirely from the tables although all other figures from the handbook were reprinted.
“It could have been a typographical error, ” the AP dispatch said, “but more probably was a demonstration of the reluctance of the Soviet Government to admit the role which Jews play in Soviet cultural and scientific life. ” The AP said that with the exception of the Russian and Ukrainian people, none of the dozens of other nationalities in the country some of which outnumber the Jews in total population–had even as much as one-fourth as many scientists as the Jews.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
