The State Department has suggested that serious thought be given to a “united appeal of private religious organizations representing world-wide Jewry and, if possible, other religious groups” in an effort to ease restrictions placed upon Soviet Jewry by the Moscow government. The suggestion was made in a memorandum prepared by the State Department at the request of Senator Kenneth B. Keating, New York Republican, who disclosed its full contents in a speech on the Senate floor today.
Sen. Keating, in his request to the State Department, urged U.S. action to prevent excesses against Soviet Jews. He said that, although the reply he received from the Department in some respects is satisfactory and straightforward in its admission of anti-Semitic activities in the Soviet Union, it still “leaves the major issue unresolved.”
The State Department memorandum concedes that the Jewish community of the Soviet Union, whether regarded as a religious group or as a nationality, suffers serious hardships. But the Department adds that “there is no evidence that the authorities intend to incite the public to acts of anti-Jewish violence. Rather, they seem to be using popular anti-Semitic sentiments for their own purposes.” The Department feels, according to the memorandum, that action by the United States through diplomatic channels would not be useful, indeed might harm Soviet Jews, in view of the suspicions of double-loyalty cast upon them by Moscow.
Senator Keating in his speech expressed satisfaction that the State Department has given further thought and attention to this problem, but stated that he was “disturbed by the Department’s reluctance to put the ful band appropriate measure of blame upon the intensive activities and campaign by the Soviet Government itself.”
SAYS ACTIVE ANTI-SEMITIC BIAS MAKES SOVIET JEWS APPREHENSIVE
The State Department, in its memorandum on the situation of Soviet Jews, noted that in the past year or two, “there have been growing indications of an active anti-Semitic bias which have made the Soviet Jews apprehensive for their future.” The memorandum also stated that, “while all observers agree that Soviet Jews are being placed under increasing restrictions with regard to religious worship, the U.S. Government has no information indicating that Soviet Jews fear physical persecution of the type and magnitude which was directed against them during Czarist times or during the immediate postwar period under Stalin.”
The State Department memorandum noted, however, that “in the recent past, Soviet press coverage of economic crimes has indicated that Jews are being sentenced, often to death, in disproportionately large numbers.” The memorandum also noted that “the number of synagogues is being quietly reduced. Press treatment of synagogues and of references to Jewish identity generally has almost always placed them in an unfavorable context. Worship is circumscribed not only by the paucity of synagogues and rabbinical training, but by restrictions affecting traditional foods and customs.”
Declaring that Jews, regardless of religious practice, are treated in the Soviet Union as a nationality listed in all their identity documents, the State Department memorandum underscored that, at the same time; “distinctive language activities and community institutions (of the Jewish population) have now been reduced almost to zero” and that there is also “a strong pressure toward assimilation, and a marked assimilation in practice.”
The Department also maintains that the existence of Israel makes Soviet Jews vulnerable to official attack on grounds of divided loyalty. Soviet Jews are also suspect for having ties with Western Jewry. As for the “economic crimes” trials, the memorandum stated that “the publicity given such trials would surely buttress already existing anti-Semitic prejudices through the association of identifiably Jewish persons with alleged criminal violations.”
After citing the Department’s arguments against formal U.S. diplomatic intervention on behalf of Soviet Jews, the memorandum concludes: “since the fate of Soviet Jewry is of concern to the world community, serious thought might be given to a united appeal of private organizations representing worldwide Jewry and, if possible, other religious groups.”
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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.
