A resolution condemning Soviet discrimination against Russian Jews was submitted yesterday to the Assembly and Senate of the New York State Legislature. It called for “appropriate sanctions” if the Soviet Union continued “its campaign of Jewish religious and cultural repression.”
Assemblyman Seymour Posner, a Democrat, and Sen. George Metcalf, a Republican, submitted the resolution. The measure was drafted with the help of the American Jewish Congress. It declared that “the cultural and religious oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union has achieved a dimension that engages our deepest concern and calls forth our deepest compassion. Soviet Jews are denied the means to practice their faith and to develop their national and religious culture through the education of their children and youth.”
The resolution denounced the Soviet Government’s curtailment of the Yiddish language, theater and press, though 500,000 Soviet Jews claim Yiddish as their first language and despite the fact that “Yiddish is acknowledged by Soviet law to be the legal and accredited national tongue of the Soviet Jewish population.” The resolution asks that United States representatives in the United Nations “demand censure of Soviet Russia for its ruthless anti-Jewish practices.”
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.
