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Soviet Writer Explains Suppression of “jewish Cosmopolitanism” in Russia; Attacks Israelis

July 31, 1950
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Claiming that he has no information about the group of internationally-known Yiddish writers who suddenly “disappeared” in Moscow, Ilya Ehrenburg, Soviet novelist who is himself a Jew, told a press conference here that Jewish authors are being suppressed in Russia but not as Jews.

“Only Jewish cosmopolitanism is suppressed,” he declared admitting at the same time that some of the articles in the Soviet press attacking “cosmopolitanism” were “stupid and idiotic.” Among the Yiddish writers who “disappeared” in Moscow after the attack on “Jewish cosmopolitanism” was started are Itzik Feffer, who during World War II was sent by the Soviet Government to the United States to bring greetings from the Jews in the U.S.S.R. to American Jewry.

Mr. Ehrenburg, who “distinguished” himself by publicly insulting the first Israel Ambassador to Moscow, Golda Myerson, at a reception given by the Soviet Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, told the press conference here that Israelis are “poor little capitalists, who live on a few dollars which the greater capitalist Jews in America send them so that they may live in a little comfort.”

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