The Australian Government demanded here today that the Soviet Union permit any Jew who wants to emigrate to do so, and requested the Kremlin regime to “take measures” to stop the anti-Semitic campaign against Jews in the Soviet press.
At the same session, Mrs. Marietta P. Tree, the member of the United States delegation specializing in human rights affairs, asked the Soviet Government specific questions about: 1. Why Jews in the USSR have their identification papers marked as Jews, while no other religion is thus singled out; and 2. Why the Jewish religion in the Soviet Union is the only one without a representative national organization, while this right is enjoyed by Moslems and other religious groups in the USSR.
The Australian representative, H. D. White, and Mrs. Tree spoke on Soviet practices of anti-Semitism in the General Assembly’s 110-member Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee. This group has been debating all week several resolutions designed to outlaw all manifestations of racial prejudice and national and religious intolerance throughout the world.
The debate had been launched Monday by Israel’s chief delegate, Michael S. Comay, who, while condemning anti-Semitism sharply, skirted around explicit mention of the USSR by name. The Australian and the American, however, challenged the Soviet Union directly, both receiving sharp answers from the Kremlin’s representative in the committee, Yakov Ostrovsky.
Today was the first time in the 17-year-old history of the United Nations that the Soviet Government was challenged outright and by name in a full Assembly body on the issue of anti-Semitism.
RUSSIAN SILENT ON U. S. QUESTIONS; AUSTRALIAN DETAILS CHARGES
Mrs. Tree, who pressed for answers to her queries about Soviet Jews, received no answer from the Soviet representative. Instead, he replied with charges about American racist practices against Negroes. But Mr. White backed his demands for Soviet relaxation of anti-Jewish practices with full detail. Pointing out that, in some countries, anti-Semitic activities are suppressed by government authorities, he said that, in the USSR,
When Mr. Ostrovsky told the committee that there is “freedom of religion” in the USSR Mr. White replied by citing official restrictions against Jewish worship, the closing of Russian synagogues, the ban on baking of matzot, and the high percentage of Jews among persons accused for alleged “economic crimes” in the USSR. “The concern about the fate of the Jewish people in the Soviet Union,” he maintained, “is shared by all those who have fought for the freedom of man. “
He then demanded officially on behalf of his Government that it permit any Jew who so desires to leave the country, citing a clause in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which asserts: “Everybody has the right to leave his country and to come back to his country. ” That Declaration, adopted in 1948, had passed the General Assembly without a single dissenting vote, with the Soviet Union present at that Assembly, held in Paris.
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.
