A group of Soviet writers, including Aron Vergelis, editor of the Moscow Yiddish bimonthly magazine, Sovietisch Heimland, refused to meet here with representatives of the Cleveland Committee on Soviet Anti-Semitism, according to a statement issued by the committee here today.
The statement was signed by the committee’s four co-chairmen: Msgr. Lawrence P. Cahill, a Catholic, who is president of St. John’s College; Rabbi Philip Horowitz, spiritual leader of Brith Emeth Congregation; the Rev. B. Bruce Whittemore, a Protestant leader, who is executive director of the Cleveland Area Church Federation; and Leo A. Jackson, a member of the Cleveland City Council.
According to the committee leader, the Russians gave “lack of time” as their excuse for not meeting with the local leaders, Actually, the leaders said, the Russians feared to meet with the local group, thereby “virtually conceding the falsity of earlier sweeping statements to the press.” In those statements, Vergelis and other members of the Russian group denied there was any anti-Semitism or indeed the existence of any Jewish problem in the USSR.
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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.
