Sen. Frank Church (D.Idaho), a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on the U.S. government here today to support the cause of Soviet Jews with all its available diplomatic and political means. Church, who heads a delegation of about a dozen members of Congress participating in the Second World Conference on Soviet Jewry, made his remarks at the opening session and elaborated on his views at a press conference later.
The legislator declared, “I believe the Soviet Jews have a right not just a privilege to leave the Soviet Union, to live as Jews unhampered and not subject to discrimination. When I come here to affirm that Israel lives not by sufferance but by right, I stand not on alien ground but in the great tradition of Western democracies.”
Church omitted from his prepared speech references to President Ford and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in which he called on them to “more affirmatively manifest the concern of the American government for a more humane treatment of Soviet Jews.” The Senator told newsmen afterwards that he thought it was “wrong to mention them (the President and Secretary of State) while abroad.”
CRITICAL OF JACKSON AMENDMENT
Church, at his press conference, responded to a message to Brussels II from Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D.Wash.), an aspirant for the 1976 Democratic Presidential nomination, who promised that “We shall not retreat” from backing demands for Soviet emigration with material means.
Church, who supported the Jackson Amendment to the Trade Reform Act that linked U.S. trade benefits for the USSR with Soviet emigration policy, told reporters here that he has since come to take a different view. He said the Jackson Amendment has resulted “in fewer Jews being allowed to leave; practically, we have thus lost ground.”
Church proposed that U.S. support for Soviet Jews be based more on “moral pressure being brought to bear on the Soviet Union.” He said the U.S. “should underscore at every opportunity it has, the right of individuals to leave the Soviet Union” and should do so “at any time it negotiates with the Soviet government and it should clearly show how seriously it views this issue.” Church declined to say whether he thought the U.S. should back this demand with material conditions.
FIRST APPROPRIATE STEP TAKEN BY USSR
Premier Yitzhak Rabin, of Israel, in a message to the conference, noted that “The present leadership of the Soviet Union has taken the first appropriate step by recognizing in principle the right of Jews who so wish to emigrate to Israel.” However, he added. “We will not reconcile ourselves to the continuing policy of intimidation and suffer-
THEME: ‘LET MY PEOPLE GO’
“Let my people go” was the theme sounded by all of the speakers as Brussels II opened with the entry into the hall of several hundred Soviet Jews who have immigrated to Israel. Thirty-five Soviet Jews, led by former Red Army Maj. Grisha Feigin, are members of the Israeli delegation to the conference. They waved a blue flag with a gold Star of David which Feigin said was the flag of Soviet Jewry. He presented it to the conference’s honorary president, former Israeli Premier Golda Meir.
Altogether, 550 Soviet Jews, now citizens of Israel, are attending the conference. A group of 100 of them will close the historic gathering Thursday with performances of Soviet Jewish songs and dances.
Yosef Almogi, chairman of the World Zionist Organization Executive and acting chairman of the Jewish Agency, who is heading the Israeli delegation to the conference, promised that Israel and the Jewish people will do all in their power to further and facilitate the integration of Soviet Jewish immigrants in Israel.
Among other opening speakers here today were David Susskind, president of the Belgian Jewish community, who declared that Soviet Jewry will never again be abandoned and never forsaken; Claude Kellman, of France, president of the Council of Europe, who pledged to Soviet Jews: “Your cause will be our cause and your struggle our struggle”; and Nissim Gaon, president of the World Sephardi Federation, who stressed that all Jews, whatever their origin, were united in their solidarity for Soviet Jewry’s claim.
ARAB CONFERENCE POSTPONED
As Brussels II began, Arab sources here announced that the Palestine Liberation Organization world conference to deal with the Palestinian issue and to expose “the true face of Zionism,” which had been scheduled to begin in Brussels Feb. 25, has been postponed until the spring. They gave no date. Reliable sources said the postponement was for technical reasons.
Yesterday, the Russians held an elaborate news conference here which included a seven-man Soviet Jewish delegation sent here to rebut statements by conference spokesmen. One of the Jews, Samuel Zivs, said “there is no Jewish problem in the Soviet Union and all those who want to leave can do so.” The delegation was subjected to a barrage of questions, sometimes angry, often provocative by reporters who wanted to know the fate of individual arrested Jews and the reasons for Soviet anti-Jewish measures.
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.
