Rabbi Schulem Rubin said today that it was “absolutely not” the North Vietnamese but other “people who are involved in this matter” who had informed him that 30 Jewish prisoners of war were held by the Hanoi regime in 1969. He would not say who the other people were.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Daily News Bulletin of March 9 had named the North Vietnamese as the source. Rabbi Rubin, of Young Israel of Pelham Parkway in the Bronx told the JTA today that the North Vietnamese have “never denied that they have Jewish prisoners.” In that connection, he denounced the statement in Paris today by a Hanoi spokesman that his government does not know how many Jewish POWs there are because “we are not racists and we do not divide prisoners according to religion or race.” Rabbi Rubin condemned what he called the implication that the United States is racist for that reason.
(The Hanoi spokesman also denied that Rabbi Rubin’s request for permission to visit POWs had been rejected. “This is a lengthy process which is being dealt with by the North Vietnamese general delegation which enjoys consular facilities,” he said.)
Rabbi Rubin stressed to the JTA that he was engaged in the effort to reach Jewish POWs “as a private citizen, as a rabbi who is interested in the plight of people all over the world.”
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