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The Canadian English-Jewish Weekly
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GABDEKVU& QUCUC, FEBRUARY 6. 1958
No. 19
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AJCongress Says Mikoyan Sentiments Alone Fail To Restore Basic Needs Of Jewish Life
Publisher Of N.Y. Leaders Of 23 Major World Groups, In N. Y. For Daily Was Life-Long Conference On Jewish Material Claims Against
Germany, Assign $10 MillionToAid Nazi[Victims
/ 7 O V
The American, Jewish Congress called on Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan to go beyond His assurances of friendship for Soviet Jewry by supporting the restoration of facilities "essential" to preserving cultural and religious fife among Russia's 3,000,000 Jews. In a resolution, the AJCongress welcomed what it termed the "friendly sentiments" expressed by Mr. Mikoyan regarding Soviet Jewry but said such assurances are not responsive to the need for "basic facilities necessary for Jewish life in the U.S.S.R."
Such facilities are granted to other religious and cultural minorities in Russia but have been denied to Jews since shortly after World War II, the AJCongreas charged. It urged Mr. Mikoyan to declare himself affirmatively on these questions:
1. Is the Soviet government prepared to grant Jewish religious congregations in Russia the same facilities granted to other minority religious groups? Such facilities weuld include the opportunity: a) To form a national body of Jewish congregations; b) To maintain contact with organized Jewish religious groups in other parts of the world; c) To publish prayerbooks, religious calendars, and other religious materials; d) To train rabbis and other religious functionaries.
2. Is the Soviet government prepared to grant to Jews the same facilities-it grants to other ethnic riilnorlty ~ grotms in' RttsaJat Such, facilities would include the oppor* tunity: a) To establish Jewish cultural institutions, including schools, theatre groups, lecture forums, etc.; b) To publish newspapers in the Yiddish language; c) Tb publish Yiddish and Hebrew literary works.
3. Is the Soviet government prepared to allow those Jews in Russia who have close relatives in Israel, the United States and elsewhere, and who seek to rejoin their families, the right to do so? Such a right is granted by the Soviet-bloc countries of Rumania and Poland.
The action was taken at a quarterly meeting of the AJCongress national administrative and executive committees at Stephen Wise Congress House, 15 East 84th Street, New York. In a special report to the AJCongreas body,
the Rev. Dr. Joachim Prinz, national president, said that while religious Jewry in Russia suffers in common with the adherents of all other religions from the basic anti-religious policy of the Soviet government, Jews are the victims of "special discrimination" by comparison with other groups. Dr. Prinz noted that all other religious denominations in Soviet Russia are permitted to have recognized national organizations which supervise the publication of periodicals and religious literature, maintain and conduct theological seminaries and work to strengthen the life of individual congregations through cooperative effort.
"No such facilities are afforded to the Jewish religious community," he reported, adding that there are only isolated synagogues, each compelled to fend for itself. He noted that there is nb single Jewish religious periodical in the whole of the Soviet Union. The American Jewish Congress official said some minor concessions had recently been made by Soviet authorities. A small theological seminary was opened last year in Moscow and the Jewish congregation was permitted, for the first time in nearly forty years, to reproduce a prayerbook by photographic process from an old edition.
"These minor concessions, wholly inadequate to the urgent needs of a large Jewish population, do not materially change the melancholy situation to which a once -great- religious^' community< has been reduced," Dr. Prinz declared,-adding: "There is no organized Jewish religious community, in the U.S�S.R. What Jewish religious life there is in Russia is cut off from regular and organized contact with JeWi�h communities elsewhere. Norv unlike Russian Moslems who may make the pilgrimage to Mecca, may any ordinary Jew hope to receive permission to make a pilgrimage to Israel."
Dr. Prinz told the meeting that the answer given by Russian officials to the charge that facilities granted to other religious commur nities are denied to Jews is that the Jews themselves have not asked for them. "This is an answer which can scarcely be expected to carry conviction in a state where deviations fromf official policy can carry severe penalties,"
(Continued on Page Five)
Seymour Berkson, aged fifty three__yea.rs, publisher of. "The New York Journal-American, died at his suite at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, in San Francisco. Cal. He suffered a heart attack six weeks previous, while attending a meeting of the board of directors of the Hearst newspapers.
Except for a few months many years ago, Seymour Berkson had been a newspaper man for the Hearst organization for nearly thirty-five years. He became publisher of "The Journal-American" in 19E>5, after ten years as vice-president and general manager of the International News Service, which merged with the United Press last year.
Mr. Berkson was born in Chicago, into an immigrant family that had come to the United States to escape persecution in Europe in tne latter half of the nineteenth century, says the New York Herald Tribune. The son of a merchant tailor, he grew up on Chicago's South Side, graduating in 1932 from Englewood High School, where he" played basket' ball � and got his first taste of newspaper work on the school paper.
He attended the University of Chicago for three and a half years, majoring in political science and attracting the attention of Prof. Charles E. Marriam, who helped him obtain a fellowship-from the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Foundation. Meanwhile, he worked on the school par>er> acted1 as- campnr "correspondent for "The Chicago Herald and Examiner," and during his vacations, worked as a district police reporter for the "Herald and Examiner" and wrote automotive news for "The Chicago Daily News." ��*
Finally, the lure of journalism became too great: he left the university when the "Herald and Examiner" offered him a full-time job and he worked with that paper as a staff reporter for the nex* six years.
In 1931, Mr. Berkson came to New York City, accepting a job as a general assignment reporter and relief man on the city desk for the Associated Press, says the New York Herald Tribune. A few months later, hoping for a- foreign assignment, he left the A. P. and went to I. N. S. He got his wish, and was bureau chief in Rome
Nearly two million indemnifi-cation claims of victims of Nazi persecution in all parts of the world are still pending against the German Federal Republic, it was announced in New York by the board of directors of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The Claims Conference, by formal resolution, appealed directly to Chancellor Adenauer of the German Federal Republic to speed up the lagging pace of indemnification payments to Nazi victims and their families, at the two-day meetings at the Hotel Astor attended by over forty Jewish leaders from North and South America, Europe, Australia and South Africa. They represented the 23 national and worldwide Jewish member organizations of the Claims Conference.
At the same time, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the Claims Conference, presented a report on the state of the indemnification program for individual Nazi victims, which was a primary responsibility assigned to the Claims Conference under the agreement it reached with the Bonn Government in 1952. "Claims pending at German indemnification offices have grown by half a million in the past nine months," Dr. Goldmann stated. "Many will fail to reach adjudication in less than ten years at the present rate, a state of affairs that must be viewed in the light of the fact that a quarter of a century has elapsed since Hitler came to pow-
Payments^ to individual Nazi victims from the German Federal Republic reached $1,242,000,000, all tolo/, by September 30, 1958. That Mini represents, nevertheless, A native f (a$tipn of the losses in-ftlctsff* by Nazi persecution and the value of the claims submitted. "The great majority of Nazi victims have failed to this very day to receive the compensation, payments due them," Dr. Goldmann stated. He \yill proceed shortly to Bonn for discussions with Chancellor Adenauer and ranking German officials on specific steps for speeding up the flow of indemnification payments.
On the favorable side, Dr. Goldmann expressed satisfaction that deliveries of goods, materials, and services, under the terms of the Bonn-Israel reparations pact of 1952, to which the Conference is
they have made their weight felt throughout the Jew1sh_wprld. "Our funds are currently aiding over llyO.OOO needy Nazi victims per years, and the numbers have grown larger, year by. year, ever since our operations began," Mr. Leavitt said. The beneficiaries, in the overwhelming majority, are making their homes in continental Europe, above all in the lands that fell victim to Nazi occupation. The majority need assistance on a more or less permanent footing, owing to advanced age, chronic illness, general unsuitability for employment, or permanent sub-standard incomes.
Allocations for cultural and educational reconstruction have exceeded $6,100,000 over the five-year period. Funds are currently going to 167 communities and institutions conducting activities in 19 lands. Over 1,800 Nazi victims are direct annual beneficiaries of the allocations, and thousands more are attending Jewish, primary and secondary schools, rabbinical seminaries, and other schools of higher learning, and teacner~trainihg colleges, that received Conference allocations. "The Claims Conference has become the greatest single source of funds throughout the entire Jewish world for world-wide programs of cultural and educational reconstruction," Mr. Leavitt stated.
A third major area of allocation, he said, is for legal aid extended via the United Restitution Organization (URO) and going , to,- needy - Nazi victim -claimants .under:.Gentian .restitution and-inr demnification laws. Allocations of $2,679,000 over the five-year span have aided the URO to carry on operations in fifteen lands. Claimants at the URO numbered 125,000 >Jrt September dy, 1958, the date of-* the 1 afcV-^ffu fu>-^ +mr-1, haying grown year by year from the 50,000 aided in 1954. Mr. Leavitt estimated that "settlements �gained by the URO for Nazi victim claimants will reach the for-
midable sum of $145,000,000 over
the yearsJL954^5JL"_.._.._____
Members of the board of directors present and the organizations they represent are: H. A. Goodman and Dr. Isaac Lewin, Agu-dath Israel World Organization; Marcel Franco, Alliance Israelite Umverselle; Jacob Blaustein and Ralph Friedman, American Jewish .Committee; Shad Pplier and Dr. Joachim Prinz, American Jewish Congress; Moses A. Leavitt and Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; Charles Spencer, Anglo-Jewish Association; Dr. Max Kirsc'hblum and Rabbi Irving Miller, American Zionist Council; Frank Goldman and Philip Klutznick, Bnai Brith; A. G. Brotman and Barnett Janner, Board of Deputies of British Jews; Alex L. Easterman and Dr. S. Roth, British Section, World Jewish Congress; Samuel Bronfman and Monroe Abbey, Canadian Jewish Congress; H. 0. Joseph, Central British Fund; Eugene Weill, Conseil Represen-,'tatif des Jutfs de France; Dr. Rudolph Callmariri, Council of Jews" from Germany; Emilio Gutkin and Dr. Abraham Mibashan, Delega-cion de Asociaciones Israelites Argentines (D.A.T.A.) ; Maurice Ashkanasy and Dr. Maurice Perlz-weig, Executive Council of Australian Jewry; Dr. Nahum Goldmann and Mrs Rose L. Halprin, Jewish Agency for Israel; Aaolph Held and Jacob Pat, Jewish Labor Committee; E. J. Horwitz and Max Melamet, South African Jewish.. Board.. of .Deputies;.- Moses Feuerstein and Samuel Rothstein, Synagogue Council of America; Dr. Israel Goldstein and Louis Segal, World Jewish Congress; Dr. Maurice Eisendrath and Dr. S. Charles Lewsen, World Union
(lalinsfcf, Zentralrat der Jude/fin Deutschland,
The aum of $10,100,785 was allocated to Jewish communities,
(Continued on Page Three)
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from 1932 C5 1934 from 1934 to 1935.
It was in Rome that he scored a major "beat." He became acquainted with Margherita Sar-fatti, known then as the "confidante" of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and obtained a series of articles by Musaolini for the Hearst newspapers.
In 1936, Mr. Bcrkt
at a smooth and even pace. A total of $391,666,067 in capital goods, materials, and services were delivered to Israel from Germany since payments started on June 30, 19531 Of that sum, $65,476,190 in goods and services were provided in 1958. In addition, advance oiFdeps-for capital goodsr including� ships and heavy equipment sche-
managing editor of I. N. S., moving up to general manager in 1945. Among his civic activities Mr. Berkson served as chairman in 1958 of the newspaper committee for Brotherhood Week, sponsored by the National Conference
(Continued on Page Twelve)
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duled for delivery over the next four years have reached $83,000,-000.
Dr. Goldmann pointed out that the reparations deliveries have left their mark upon the expansion and modernization of industry, agriculture, and transportation in Israel. In the development of the Israeli merchant marine, in the expansion of the electric power system, and in supplying oil drilling, mining and related heavy -equipment, the reparations deliveries have played a noteworthy role. The shipment of reparations goods, materials, and services to the State of Israel was a major aspect of the 1952 agreements, and called for deliveries valued at 1822,000,000, over a twelve-year span. The Conference is to receive from the German government over that period, as its share of the over-all amount, the sum of $107,000,000 for use in the relief, rehabilitation, and resettlement of Nazi victims.
The former I. G. Farben Trust has provided a fund of $7.142,000 for distribution among the surviving Jewish slave laborers at Auschwitz, who were compelled to toil at its nearby synthetic rubber factory during the war. The fond w�s set up by the terms of an agreement reached between th'e Claims Conference and the I. G. Farben Co. About 6.000 one-lime Jewish ylave laborers at the Farben factory are expected to receive compensation.
Moses A. Leavitt. treasurer of the Claims Conference, reported on achievements flowing from allocations granted over the first five yean of Conference operations, following a report on the expenditure of 110,234,283 in Conference allocations for 1958. For relief and rehabilitation, Conference allocations over the years 1964-*8 reached $37,300,000, and
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