More than 40 leading Jewish and non-Jewish personalities from 15 countries will take part in a one-day conference on the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union which opens here tomorrow. The conference has been called by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, It will be open to the press but not to the public. The participants are leading figures in the world of art, science, politics and literature.
The conference is not intended to be an anti-Soviet demonstration but as an objective discussion on the plight of Soviet Jews suffering from discrimination as Jews. A review of the list of conference participants indicates that care had been taken to invite numerous persons who definitely maintain a sympathetic attitude toward the Soviet Union. These include M. Leon-Caen, honorary Justice of the Court of Cassation, who is president of the Resistance Movement, MRAP, which has always taken pro-Soviet stand, and Andre Blumel, president of France-USSR.
The conference will open with addresses by Prof. Martin Buber and Dr. Goldmann, describing the present situation of Jews in the USSR. These addresses will follow a declaration by the presiding officer, Daniel Mayer, former French deputy and now head of the League for the Rights of Man.
Participants were due from eight continental European countries, Britain, the United States, Israel, Chile, Argentina, Madagascar and Mali. Among the participants from the United States will be Protestant Bishop James Pike of San Francisco, the critic Lionel Trilling, and the counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Thurgood Marshall.
British participants will include the novelist Wolf Mankiewicz and Peter Van Sittart, son of Lord Van Stuart. The French leaders will include Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan and two political figures, Claude Bootleg and Edouard Devereux. The participants are coming in their personal capacities and not as representatives of any group or organizations.
Messages expressing sympathy with the aims of the conference have been received from Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, writer Francois Mauriac and others.
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