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European Group Calls for Stiff Steps to Fight Soviet Anti-semitism

April 15, 1964
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A study group of five prominent European Socialists charged today that the anti-Semitic Soviet book, “Judaism Without Embellishment, ” published in Kiev, was not isolated phenomenon and that Soviet anti-Jewish discrimination threatened the continued existence of the Jews as a nationality in Russia.

The book, published last year by the Ukrainian Academy of Science, touched off a wave of criticism in the West. Alexei Adjubei, son-in-law of Soviet Premier Khrushchev, and editor of Izvestia, the official Government newspaper, said during a visit to Paris last week that Soviet officials had confiscated and destroyed all copies of the book.

Declaring that there was “a grave Jewish problem in the USSR, ” the study group called for “radical measures” to prevent further deterioration of the Jewish position. The group said that, “in addition to the Kiev book, “other propaganda in the Russian press aimed at anti-social activities, prominently features Jews, and is therefore of a nature to bring upon the Jewish people of the USSR dislike and contempt of their Soviet fellow-citizens.”

The signers of the report were John Clark of Britain, Prof. Mogens Phil of Denmark, Dr. P.J. Koets of Holland, Dr. John Sannes of Norway, and Alvar Alsterdal of Sweden.

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