Differences of opinion on whether anti-Semitism now prevailing in the Soviet Union is part and parcel of an official policy of the Soviet Government developed today among leaders of the Zionist Organization of America at the two day meeting of the ZOA National Executive Council being held here.
While Max Bressler, ZOA president, said that he does not subscribe to the contention that “underlying the anti-Jewish discrimination in Russia is governmental anti-Semitism,” Dr. Max Nussbaum, chairman of the National Executive Council asserted at today’s session that the imprisonment of lay leaders and rabbis in the Soviet Union represents “an open policy of anti-Semitism embarked upon by the Moscow government.”
Both Zionist leaders equally expressed concern over the discriminations which are being practiced now agains. Jews in the Soviet Union and especially over the arrests of Jewish communal and religious leaders. However, Mr. Bressler expressed the belief that these discriminations stem most probably from a misconception of what constitutes Jewish nationality or Judaism combined with a political aversion to Israel. “To my mind,” he said, “both these sources can yield to change with patient and proper handling.
Dr. Emanuel Neumann, member of the Jewish Agency executive, addressing the session, criticized the present multiplicity of competing groups in the American Zionist movement and called for a closer union among American Zionist organizations through an “earnest reappraisal and realignment” of Zionist forces in this country. He voiced the belief that “this can be effected without the total loss of identity” on the part of the various Zionist groups, or the suppression of their internal autonomy.
Moshe Sharett, chairman of the Jewish Agency, speaking at today’s session, said that the present position of Jews in some countries constitutes a challenge to Zionists and non-Zionists alike. “It is up to the non-Zionists to acknowledge that without the inspiration and drive supplied by the Zionist movement there would have been no independent Israel today,” he said. “It is up to the Zionists to realize that far from being able to rest on their laurels, they are called upon to close their ranks and redouble their efforts so as to make of the Zionist message the central theme of contemporary Jewish life.”
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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.
