The subject of Soviet Jewry continued to dominate the Conference of European Jewish Communities here today. Prof. Richard Lowenthal, professor of international relations at the Free University of Berlin, took indirect issue with a statement by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, which stressed the need to fight for the rights of Soviet Jews to live as Jews in the USSR.
“Only when the struggle for Jewish emigration has been finally won will the time be ripe to assert the demands for the rights of Jews as Jews within the Soviet Union,” Prof. Lowenthal said. Prof. Lowenthal did not refer directly to Dr. Goldmann’s speech which was delivered Saturday night. His main point was that the international situation was an important factor but not a decisive one in the treatment of Soviet Jews.
The decisive factor is the domestic situation in the USSR, he said. “We now have a regime in the Soviet Union which can be described as post revolutionary but not Stalinist. Basically, the
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