Sharp criticisms against the Soviet Union, for its proposal that the United Nations equate Zionism with anti-Semitism and Nazism in a blanket condemnation of “colonialism and race hatred,” was voiced today by all sections of the Zionist movement.
Among those who spoke up on the issue were Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Zionist Organization; the American Zionist Council, the coordinating body of the entire Zionist movement in the United States; Dr. Emanuel Neumann, chairman of the Jewish Agency-American Section; and Jacques Torczyner, president of the Zionist Organization of America.
Calling the Soviet move “absurd,” Dr. Goldmann pointed out that “the Zionist movement never fought against other peoples and their nationalist aspirations” but, on the contrary, “always supported those aspirations and also nationalist aspirations of the Arab people.”
“I am astonished and very sorry that Soviet Russia, which has always shown sympathy to the national aspiration of subjugated peoples, and voted in the United Nations General Assembly for the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the second State, after the United States, which recognized the State of Israel, which is the realization of the Zionist vision, lends its support to the attempt made by the Arabs to compare the Zionist movement to racialist movements,” Dr. Goldmann declared.
DR. NEUMANN CALLS SOVIET TACTICS AT U.N. A ‘RED HERRING’
Dr. Neumann called the Soviet tactic a “red herring which is almost unbelievable, coming from the spokesman of a major power.” The move, he said, “was probably born of a desire to avert attention from the anti-Jewish discriminations practiced by the Soviet Government and as a protective cover against the protests in this country and throughout the world against such Russian discrimination against Jews.”
“It is to be hoped,” Dr. Neumann concluded, “that the spokesman of the Soviet Government was not really serious in this ludicrous attempt to confuse the issues of human rights that have been so seriously considered for so long by the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee of the United Nations. The Soviet representatives at the United Nations should not allow themselves, even temporarily, to be the foils for Arab propagandistic attempts to compare Zionism with racialism.”
The American Zionist Council declared: “By its attempt to bracket Zionism with colonialism, race hatred, anti-Semitism and Nazism, the Soviet Union has shown its colossal ignorance of the philosophy and objectives of the Zionist movement. This Soviet move must be considered as another step in the continuing campaign to stifle Jewish culture, ideals, tradition, people hood, and spiritual identity. This maneuver, moreover, raises serious doubts as to the true intent of the Soviet Union with regard to the elimination of anti-Semitism. The Soviet Government must stand condemned for throwing a monkey wrench into the international fight against anti-Semitism as well as for its crude attempt to slander the movement of Jewish national renaissance, which was responsible for the emergence of the State of Israel.”
Mr. Torczyner said the Soviet move “gives aid and comfort to anti-Semitic forces in this country and abroad, which are making Zionists the main targets of their attacks.”
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.
