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Former Australian Laborite Leader Urged Soviet Authorities to Permit Jews to Go

July 2, 1968
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date

Arthur Calwell, former Australian Labor Party leader, disclosed here that he had urged Soviet authorities, during a recent visit to Russia, to allow Jewish families with relatives in Israel to join them there.

He also said that anti-Semitism existed in the Soviet Union partly as a result of the Israel “problem” and partly because of a “black streak” in many Russians stemming from the Czarist period. He asserted that Russians considered Jews as a “vestigial anachronism” and that they wanted them to leave, on the one hand, but were afraid of losing the “significant contributions” made by Jews to Russia, on the other.

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