The World Jewish Congress has challenged the assertion made here last week by Aaron Vergelis, editor of Sovietish Heimland, the official Yiddish magazine in the Soviet Union, that Soviet anti-Semitism was no worse than anti-Semitism anywhere else. “A few tame, paid, intimidated and frightened Jews were sent abroad to cover up the actions taken by the Soviet authorities against the Jewish population of some 3 million,” the WJC said here. “Tens of thousands have asked to leave the Soviet Union to join their kinfolk in Israel and elsewhere,” the WJC continued, accusing the Kremlin of breaking Premier Alexei N. Kosygin’s contention four years ago that the USSR permitted free emigration. Vergelis had said that anti-Semitism existed in the USSR “as it does anywhere in the world where Jews live,” and that an estimated 1,000 Soviet Jews who had left for Israel in 1970. He also said the 25,000 circulation of his monthly magazine indicated that there was dissemination of Jewish culture in the USSR. (In New York, Jerry Goodman of the American Jewish Committee said the publication of Sovietish Heimland was “an answer but not the answer,” as it is only one magazine and besides, many of its 25,000 copies are sent out of the country. The magazine was “welcome” he said, but it’s only a partial answer, a token.”)
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