The Soviet Union is continuing to practice discrimination against Jews in graduate fields of education, according to a study just published by the American Jewish Committee’s International Relations Department.
Leo Nevas, chairman of the Committee’s International Relations Commission, made public the results of the study, conducted by Allan Kagedan, AJC policy analyst and Soviet affairs specialist.
Last year, according to the study, a group of high school teachers of gifted mathematics students conducted a survey of 1983 admissions to Moscow University’s Physics and Technical Institute and Mathematics Department.
The random survey identified three categories of applicants: those with “Jew” stamped on their identification papers; those with one Jewish grandparent; and those with no Jewish ancestry at all.
Kagedan stated, “Of the students with no Jewish ties, 76 percent were admitted to the physics and mathematics departments. Fifty-six percent with some Jewish ancestry also gained admission. But only 14 percent of Jewish students were admitted.” He declared, “This clear case of racial discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union is an affront to all those who believe in equality.”
CITES AN ‘OMINOUS’ PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN
At the same time, according to Kagedan, the Anit-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public is staging press conferences, using Jews who seek to refute claims that anti-Semitism exists in the Soviet Union’s schools of higher education.
Kagedan, who is a Ph. D. candidate in Soviet Affairs at Columbia University, calls the propaganda campaign of the Anti-Zionist Committee “ominous.” The Committee allegedly held a meeting on May 15, 1984, at which Natalyia Grindberg, said to be a Moscow University math and mechanics student, stood up and branded (as “lies” the) “Western propaganda that young Jews are barred from higher education.”
Nevas and Dr.Marc Tanenbaum, AJCommittee international relations director, announced that copies of the study are being made available to U.S. Congressmen concerned with human rights. The study is also being sent to foreign governments and international human rights agencies for stimulating responses to Soviet violations of human rights.
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