Israel won a significant victory here this weekend, over staunch opposition, by getting a favorable vote in the Commission on Human Rights of a proposal that all countries should assure orphaned children that they must be brought up in accordance with the “expressed or presumed” religious wishes of their dead parents.
A non-governmental speaker during the debate, Dr. Isaac Lewin, of the World Agudath Israel, had told the Commission that, following World War II, at least 20,000 orphans had been turned over to Gentiles for their upbringing, thus being “lost to their people.”
The Israeli move, started by Israel’s representative on the Commission, Associate Supreme Court Justice Haim H. Cohn, and aided by the deputy Israeli permanent representative, Dr. Joel Barromi, had been ruled out of order by the group’s chairman, Fernando Volio Jimenez, of Costa Rica. Justice Cohn took the unusual step of appealing from the chair’s ruling, winning by a vote of 10-4 with seven abstentions. The Israeli clause was then adopted by a vote of 9-7 with four abstentions, being supported among others by the United States, Britain and France, with the USSR in opposition.
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