The Paris Meeting on Soviet Jewry

...But this is only part of the story...

...The latter are allowed provincial and all-Union organization, financial autonomy, publications, the manufacture of religious articles and training facilities for their priesthood...

...They cannot change their “nationality”—which is stamped on the identification cards they must carry—from Jew to Russian any more than the majority can change their appearance...

...Whether this anti-Jewish campaign is organized in Moscow, or merely represents old-fashioned Russo-Ukrainian anti-Semitism finding favorable scope for activity inside the Communist framework, is difficult to say...

...Pressure was placed on four members of the synagogue committee to denounce the Jewish religion and their Rabbi in typical Pravda-editorial style, and then the authorities stepped in and took over the synagogue...

...Of course, these rights are granted only out of political calculations, and religious institutions are under strict political surveillance and pressure, but they exist...

...Daniel Mayer, Socialist ex-Minister and president of the League for Human Rights, was chairman, and philosopher Martin Buber...

...Both are also allowed a modicum of international ties: The Orthodox Church has Sees beyond the borders of the Soviet Union and its own establishment in the Holy Land (in both Israeli and Jordanian territory) ; Moslems study at Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo and perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, Moslem delegates frequently attend international Moslem congresses...

...As Goldmann pointed out, the Volga Germans, who are now scattered over several regions of Russia, have been allowed to reestablish the schools and cultural facilities which were taken away from them 20 years ago because of their real or alleged pro-Nazi sympathies...

...The Russians never really accept them as fellow Russians...

...Left-wingers, neutralists, fellow travelers and obdurate non-politicals came together here a fortnight ago with firm supporters of the Atlantic union and Zionists and agreed on a common resolution...

...Jews now account for 10 per cent of Moscow s population and, ironically, they stand out as a group right in the capital of the Soviet Union and the Communist world...

...On the one hand, they are not allowed to assimilate—whatever that means...

...The resolution, and the statement by Dr...

...In Moscow, the world’s second largest “Jewish city, with 6-700,000 Jewish inhabitants, there is not a single Jewish restaurant, library, club, newspaper or institution of any kind apart from three synagogues...

...In other words, he sought to raise pro-Soviet voices on this question in the hope that the Russians would be more prone to listen to them...

...They are allowed only one small rabbinical seminary with a dozen students, although it is estimated that half of the nearly three million Soviet Jews practice their faith to a greater or lesser extent...

...No history of the Jews is obtainable in Russia, and the miserable mention given them in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is quite negative...

...Soviet Jews are allowed no history of their own as a source of identification and pride...

...it avoids discussing the serious discrimination in the Soviet Union against Jews as individuals...

...ALFRED SHERMAN, Whose articles frequently appear in these pages, has recently visited the Soviet Union...

...Though Goldmann avoided raising the question on this occasion, the few remaining synagogues are also subject to active persecution...

...a Moscow Jew said to me, explaining why he advised his son not to marry a non-Jewish girl...

...Andre Blumel, fellow traveling French Zionist leader...

...Whereas Soviet spokesmen boast about written cultures created for tribes like the Maris, Yakuts and Samoyeds, who now have newspapers, books and schools, the Jews are allowed no newspapers, books, theaters, schools, or cultural life in Yiddish or any other language...

...Though there is room for discussion as to whether Goldmann went a little too far in rebutting possible accusations of “anti-Soviet-ism,” there is no doubt that the conference, and the organization its sponsors hope to set up, seriously embarrassed the Russians and their Communist supporters...

...who also claims to be neutralist, delivered an address...

...At the end of the day, the conference agreed on a resolution to be handed to Soviet Ambassador Sergei Vinogradov on his return to Paris...

...Messages of support were received from Albert Schweitzer, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall and Labor MP Richard Crossman...

...In addition, a contingent of less inhibited participants attended, including British authors Muriel Spark and Wolf Mankowitz, Professor Lionel Trilling of Columbia University, B’nai Brith President Label Katz and Bishop Pike of San Francisco...

...But this, in turn, is creating a new “Jewish problem...

...To this end he proposed a general political approach for Israel which came very close to neutralism...

...Experience disabused Goldmann...

...Nahum Goldmann, Zionist and Jewish communal leader, and represented an interesting intellectual evolution on his part...

...What struck me most strongly while I was in the Soviet Union was the terribly anomalous position of the Jews...

...He tried to enlist the support of as many public figures as possible who were “opposed to the continuance of the cold war . . . and would not engage in any crusade or general attacks on the Soviet Union . . . who have a proud record of trying to promote a system of genuine coexistence and friendly relations between peoples . . . having raised their voices in favor of genuine disarmament and an end to the race in atomic arms...

...The conference resolution dismisses the “usual Soviet explanation . . . that Soviet Jews do not constitute a nation with a territorial or administrative center . . .” as having “no precedent in any other country in the world...

...The Jews flock into Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Odessa from all over the country because they feel that the big cities offer anonymity, and that the presence of foreign tourists and diplomats will prevent excesses...

...Goldmann on which it was based, are convincing as far as they go...

...The meeting was called by Dr...

...The French Communist press sent up a barrage of accusations against the conference, and Ilya Ehrenburg...

...Exactly why the Soviet regime singles out Jews for persecution was not discussed at the conference, and it is anybody’s guess...

...But events like these add point to the conference’s demand that Jews be allowed an all-Union religious organization able to look after these isolated communities...

...Hardly a week passes without an item in one of the Soviet provincial papers about the closing down of the synagogue in the smaller provincial towns of the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Bessarabia on one pretext or another...

...Present were Claude Bourdet, editor of the neutralist and pro-Algerian Nationalist France-Observateur...

...A typical example occurred at Orgeev in Bessarabia during my recent visit to the Soviet Union...

...Diverse group asks Moscow to restore basic freedoms The Paris Meeting on Soviet Jewry By Alfred Sherman PARIS THE MOST remarkable feature of the one-day Conference on the Plight of Soviet Jewry was that it was held at all...

...Jews, by contrast, are allowed no rabbinical council to unify their scattered synagogues, each of which remains isolated...

...Even if they keep quiet now, who knows how they would react if the ‘black days’ of 1948-53 were to return...

...however, and he finally decided to convene the Paris conference, against the protests of many of his associates...

...Rabbis and religious men are denounced as swindlers, drunks (because wine is had at festivals), speculators (because they “illegally” produce and sell religious almanacs and unleavened bread), lechers, etc...

...and Professor de la Pira, the Christian-Pacifist ex-Mayor of Florence who created a stir by threatening to sell the town’s art treasures to raise money for the poor, and who is openly courted by the Russians...

...Individual Jews are pilloried for holding “illegal” prayer meetings and the names of their relatives who work in Government offices, or are studying and hold Party cards, are published...

...They are deprived of elementary facilities for owning buildings and other property, for manufacturing religious necessities, for obtaining funds, for printing prayer books, Bibles and other religious literature...

...Unlike Christians and Moslems, too, they are allowed no organized contact whatsoever with their coreligionists abroad, not even with those in the satellites...

...If nothing else, the conference showed how sensitive the left still is to the Jewish question, and how much remains to be done in exploding the shopworn myth of Soviet justice toward minorities...

...Yet, while they are reminded that they do not share in Russian history...

...This is perhaps the most cogent proof that there is still ample room for further activities devoted to publicizing the unhappy predicament of Soviet Jewry...

...Zionistic,” “anti-Soviet,” etc...

...Edouard De-preux...

...At all events, the conference demands are modest enough: the right to religious, cultural and communal organization and links with Jews abroad, the rights to a Yiddish education and cultural life...

...For many years he was opposed to public agitation about the plight of Soviet Jewry— in contrast to several Israeli leaders —and believed that he could achieve better results by personal approaches and behind-the-scenes diplomacy...

...Moscow’s number one court Jew, came to Paris himself to remonstrate with Maitre Andre Blumel...

...Readers are told that Judaism is inherently “bourgeois-nationalistic,” “cosmopolitan...

...Goldmann was moderately successful in his round-up...

...People who have managed to avoid breathing a single word of criticism of the Soviet Union for the past 40 years put their names to a highly critical document, though no political pressure was exercised on them...

...Soviet sources are marshalled to show that the Jewish religion is discriminated against vis-a-vis the Orthodox Church and Islam...

...general secretary of the anti-Gaullist United Socialist party, to which Mendes-France belongs...

...Whatever the real value of the “national cultural” rights granted to non-Russian minorities in the USSR, the Jews are demonstrably worse off than any other minority...

...The provincial press and radio carry vicious attacks on Jews in general and single out religious Jews for opprobrium by name, reminding one of Der Sturmer and other anti-Semitic publications of the right...

...It deals with cultural rights, religious freedom and reuniting families separated by World War II...