A delegation of Mexican, Jewish leaders was received by Soviet Ambassador, Rotislav Sergeiev and First Secretary Yuri Mishin for wide-ranging discussions in a two-hour meeting.
The meeting has caused a sensation in Jewish circles throughout Latin America since this is the first time in many years that a Soviet Ambassador had agreed to receive a Jewish delegation and discuss Jewish matters, according to a member of the delegation, Chaim Lazdeiski, editor of the Yiddish publication, “Der Veg,” and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s correspondent here.
The delegation of the Comite Central Israelita de Mexico, the representative body of Mexican Jewry and the World Jewish Congress affiliate, protested against discrimination suffered by Soviet Jews, particularly the treatment of activist and Hebrew teacher losif Begun who was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison and internal exile.
The delegation, headed by Enrique Beraha, vice president of the Comite, handed Sergeiev a letter of protest addressed to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov which the Soviet envoy promised to forward on to his government in Moscow.
ELEMENTS IN THE LETTER
The letter “strongly protests the unjust detention” by Soviet authorities of Begun. The handling of his case is described as a violation of domestic Soviet law and international commitments of the Soviet Union including the Helsinki accords and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Similarly, the letter decries the “odious treatment of the Jewish minority living in the Soviet Union” and emphasizes its lack of free emigration and transit and the hardships engendered in preventing the reunification of families in other nations. The letter was signed on behalf of the Comite by its president, Bernardo Weizner, Beraha and Secretary-General David Shamosh.
According to Lazdeiski, Sergeiev told the group that there was no anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and stressed the point by referring to names of Jewish members in the Politburo. In accepting the letter, Sergeiev said he was ready to meet with Jewish leaders at any time when they felt the need to discuss Soviet Jewish problems. He added that Jewish leadership should not put stock in the hate propaganda of “Yankee imperialism,” Lazdeiski reported.
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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.
