Government officials here noted a violent new anti-Jewish broadcast transmitted in recent days within the Soviet Union. The broadcast, originating in Kirovograd on the Odessa regional service, attacked religious Jews as “swindlers under the mask of God’s servants.”
Using Nazi-like terminology, the broadcast, which was in the Ukrainian language, said that “stuffing themselves with matzoh and special fruit received from Israel, the preachers of Judaism pray only to the Golden Calf: How to collect more money from believers.” Also that they “pray for the militant spirit of the Israeli militarists.”
During the Soviet rule, said the broadcast, many of the Rabbis “had an inimical attitude toward the Socialist system and opposed the interests of the Soviet people.” It charged that the Rabbis served “internal counter-revolutions and international imperialism.”
Mentioning a number of Rabbis by name, the broadcast said that “hiding under the cloak of believers” they “busy themselves with swindles; they appropriate the money given by believers; when this is not enough they go to the people to collect donations, which then go into the bottomless pockets.”
The allegation was made that “reactionary” Jewish sermons preached in Soviet synagogues reveal that “the Jewish faith has been strongly intermixed with Jewish bourgeois nationalism and Zionism, already possessing a strong reactionary essence.” The broadcast also alleged that in Soviet synagogues following Saturday services, synagogue leaders gorge themselves on “vodka, wine, and snack.” It alleged that swindled money was used to finance these “drinking bouts.”
Circumcision was condemned for its “nationalistic character.” The broadcast said: “Its specific significance lies in the fact that it gives proof of belonging to the ‘Chosen People,’ the Jews. At the same time it imbues Jews with repugnance and hatred of those who do not possess this special sign. Besides, the rite of circumcision is a cruel rite and not always harmless, because it is carried out in a crude manner by circumcisers, people who have no inkling of medicine.”
According to the Communist broadcast “Judaic sermons are sermons of bourgeois Zionists. Such sermons are tools of the nationalistic, Israeli, cosmopolitan, American bourgeoisie. With their tentacles, the Jewish bourgeois nationalists, with the help of Judaism, try to reach into our Soviet garden. But they will never succeed.”
The broadcast credited “the working people of Jewish nationality” with building “the Communist society” and a portion of credit for the creation of Soviet sputniks. But the attack on the Jewish religion and the State of Israel was without restraint.
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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.
