U.N. Commission on Human Rights Opens Session; Israel Welcomed As Member

With consideration of a draft convention on the elimination of all forms of religious intolerance the main item on an 18-point agenda, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights convened its 21st annual session here today–with Israel represented as a member of the body.

The Israeli representative is Dr. Haim Cohen, a member of Israel’s Supreme Court and Israel’s former Attorney General. Ambassador Salvador de Lopez, of the Philippines, chairman of this year’s session, formally welcomed Israel as a new member of the Commission, along with two other new members, Iraq and Jamaica. Prof. Rene Cassin, of France, president of Alliance Israelite Francaise, is also a member of the Commission.

In addition to consideration of the religious freedom item, which has been pending before one UN body or another for several years, the session agenda also has an item, inscribed by Poland, forbidding the termination of prosecution of Nazi war criminals in all countries in the world.

A number of international and other Jewish organizations are represented at the session as non-governmental participants, with the right of speaking but not the right to vote. Among the organizations and their representatives are the American Jewish Committee, Morris B. Abram, president; Agudat Israel, Chief Rabbi Alexander Saffran, of Geneva; Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations, Dr. Gustaf Warburg; Consultative Council of Jewish Organizations, Dr. Moses Moskowitz; World Jewish Congress, Dr. Maurice L. Perlzweig; and International Council of Jewish Women, Mrs. Miriam Warburg. The sessions will continue until April 15.

The draft convention dealing with religious freedoms would call upon all governments, including the Soviet Union but not mentioning the USSR specifically, to permit full freedom of religious practice to all believers. Under the document, teaching of Hebrew would be permitted, as well as the right of religious Jews to visit Israel.