In this spirit the 183rd General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, meeting in Rochester, New York, May 17-26, 1971, after hearing an appeal on behalf of Soviet Jewry, voted the following resolution:

"In reaffirmation of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and

"In continuing concern for all those who suffer religious persecution and repression in any part of the world;"

[We] "denounce the unjust confinement and the forthcoming trials of those Soviet citizens of Jewish and Christian faiths who are being denied right of selfdetermination and their right of emigration.

"We appeal to President Nixon to use his good offices and to intercede with authorities of the Soviet Union in order to secure the release and the restoration of full civil rights of these citizens."

We Presbyterians understand that religious freedom involves very practical matters. It is not the right merely to an internal belief: It requires the liberty to offer one's family religious and cultural nurture through corporate worship, reading, education and the supportive fellowship of organized religious association.

DECLINE OF SYNAGOGUES

We could only regard the inexorable decline in the number of Russian synagogues from 3,000 in 1917 to 60 today as intended strangulation. A church with its own publishing house, we Presbyterians could only see the ban on the printing of Hebrew Bibles and virtual prohibition of contemporary Jewish religious and cultural publications-no books and a bare dribble of magazine publication-as suppression. A people who historically emphasized the importance of an informed laity and educated clergy, we Presbyterians would regard Russia's prohibition of Jewish seminaries and the religous-cultural education of Jewish youth as clear-cut religious persecution. And understanding the importance to the Jewish community of liturgical practices and ceremonial drama, we would see the denial of ceremonial objects such as prayer shawls to be an intolerable harrassment. We Presbyterians would understand the desire of many Russian Jews (over 100,000) to emigrate to Israel and would protest (as our Assembly has done) Russia's strange behavior in blocking most attempts to do so. Our Calvinist forebears, both Puritans and Presbyterians, came to America in significant numbers to seek a new life free of the religious persecutions and prohibitions they had known.

SEEKING JEWISH IDENTITY

Sometimes we think religious freedom is freedom for religious institutions to exist and grow. Actually, it is freedom for people, for persons to be themselves. This hits us with a strong impact when we learn how young members of the Jewish nationality group in Russia, carrying Jewish identification cards but with little or no training in their Jewishness, are now avidly searching for a Jewish identity. It's sneaked up on the world, but these young people, a most unlikely group, are now demanding to be the Jews their official cards say they are. Despite harrassment, censorship, prohibition, and persecution, they are determined to learn what religious Jewishness means. They can't be themselves until they know.

It shocks human sensibilities that a modern government would block any of their youth in so constructive a quest and imply that it is evidence of an enmity toward the nation.

I believe the Congress of the United States should call on the President and the Secretary of State to speak up publicly against the religio-cultural harrassment and persecution of the Jews in Russia, and on behalf of their right to emigrate, using the news media, our diplomatic contacts, and the agencies of the United Nations to make our viewpoint clear and to seek a change in Russian practices, in keeping with the Soviet Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, and human decency.

PASTOR NIEMOELLER'S WORDS

Something the Rev. Dr. Martin Niemoeller said in 1945 is an important reminder to us as we hear about the denial of rights to any group, no matter how removed they might seem to be from you and me. Having been thrown into the Dachau concentration camp by the Nazis, he spoke with conviction when he said: "In Germany the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. And then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up for me."

Reverend MCCLELLAN. This last quotation strikes a little note of self-interest, I suppose. I am here, however, because of a common belief of all the major religions in the precious nature of human personality. Thank you.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. Thank you very much. That is a very moving statement. It is one of the shortest statements we have had and, perhaps, the most meaningful.

Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. I would like to commend Reverend McClellan on a very fine statement. It certainly gives us a good definition of religious freedom.

Reverend MCCLELLAN. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. Are there any other thoughts that you have of what the church community can do in the United States to show its interest in this matter?

Reverend MCCLELLAN. I have gone to my Jewish associates and made myself available to them in any way that I could be useful. I suspect that most of us in the Christian church leadership group are waiting for signals and I was doing so. Then it dawned on me that this is a strange attitude. I took the initiative, and the response has taught me something that I shall pass on to other pastors.

I would hope that pastors would make their people aware of the fact that not only do we all have a stake in this, as Dr. Niemoeller has indicated, but that also an initiative of love is both incumbent upon neighbors in a thing like this and essential to the concept of Christian love. So I think it is time for the church, which has been waiting for signals, to act on its own signals.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. On that very poignant and traditional American note, we shall adjourn. Again my thanks to you for taking time out from a very busy schedule to appear before this subcommittee on a matter that we consider of great urgency.

Thank you again.

The subcommittee stands adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.)

STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MEMBERS OF

CONGRESS

STATEMENT OF HON. BELLA S. ABZUG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

My testimony before this subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is a natural consequence of a lifetime of involvement in the fight for human rights for all people. As a Congresswoman representing a district which in its diversity is a microcosm of New York, I am daily called upon to defend the human rights of a multiethnic constituency. As the only Jewish Congresswoman in the House, I am particularly sensitive to the serious problems facing the third largest Jewish community in the world-the 3 million Jews in the Soviet Union.

For Jews who have chosen to assimilate, there have been relatively few problems of employment and educational opportunities. But for Jews who seek to identify and live as Jews, with unrestrained access to Jewish language and Hebrew language cultural, religious and educational institutions, insurmountable obstacles have been placed in their way.

In the first three decades of the Soviet regime, the state supported a wide network of cultural and educational institutions and activities for Jews in Yiddish. Today, these institutions have, for the most part, been dismantled. Only occasionally are Yiddish books published; a Yiddish literary magazine, Sovietish Heimland, appears monthly, and much of its edition of 16,000 is for export.

LEGAL RIGHTS FLOUTED

Soviet legal prohibitions on discrimination against religious, na tional and social groups are being flouted. The courageous assertion of Jewish consciousness by Soviet Jews continues to represent a remarkable phenomenon and is evidenced by the tens of thousands of young Jews who gather to sing and dance outside of the synagogues in various cities on Simhath Torah and other festivals.

Although ideologically the Soviet Government is committed to atheism, formally it allows for freedom of religious worship. However, unlike other recognized religious bodies, Judaism is not permitted any central or coordinating structure, and publication of prayer books and Bibles is limited.

Jews who have sought to leave for Israel or to rejoin broken or scattered families elsewhere have encountered difficulty, harassment, and imprisonment. It should be noted, however, that the Soviet Union has shown increasing evidence of its sensitivity to world opinion by easing some emigration restrictions.

During my visit to Israel recently, I was informed by Government officials at an Absorption Center which provides temporary homes and

training facilities for immigrants, that the number of Soviet Jews migrating to Israel has been stepped up to 1,000 per month. The expectation was that 12,000 a year would be coming from the Soviet Union, about 10,000 from the United States, with most of the others coming from Canada and Latin America.

Despite the apparent relaxation of immigration barriers by the Soviet Government, many more Jews are waiting to be granted exit visas. Some are in prison or labor camps. A particularly tragic case is that of Silva Zalmanson, a young Jewish woman serving a 10-year sentence in a labor camp for allegedly participating in a plot to hijack a Russian plane. Mrs. Zalmanson is reportedly seriously ill with tuberculosis.

I have called on the Soviet Government to show compassion in this case by immediately releasing this young woman and allowing her to emigrate to Israel, as appears to be her wish.

There remain, of course, millions of Soviet Jews who for many reasons will choose to stay in the Soviet Union. I feel a keen sense of responsibility to them as well. I therefore join my colleagues in urging the Government of the U.S.S.R. to permit its Jewish citizens the right to live as Jews and to preserve their cultural and religious heritages, or to leave for Israel or for any other country to which they wish to emigrate.

PAROLE AUTHORITY

I welcome the announcement by Attorney General Mitchell several weeks ago that he intends to use his parole authority to admit as many Jews from the Soviet Union as are able to obtain exit visas and who wish to come here.

I would also like to direct the attention of this body to the very serious plight of thousands of Jews in Syria who face constant harassment and imprisonment just for being Jews. Twelve Jews were recently arrested for attempting to flee the country. Reports from Jews who have managed to escape to Israel have contained gruesome tales of torture, midnight raids upon Jewish homes, and the virtual house arrest of the Syrian Jewish population. I would hope that our Government would speak out in their behalf and help them to seek refuge elsewhere.

My concern for the rights of Jews everywhere, in the Soviet Union, in Syria, in the United States, wherever they may live, requires me to condemn the terroristic acts of the Jewish Defense League, which is neither Jewish in its ethics nor anything but provocative in its actions. The JDL's demagogic misleader proves daily that he is less concerned with the plight of Soviet Jewry than he is with his oft stated attempt to rupture the détente that exists between our country and the U.S.S.R. His encouragement of terroristic and violent acts has been a disservice both to the Jews in the Soviet Union and to the peace of the world. I am heartened by the fact that his group has been repudiated by every important leader and organization in the Jewish community, as well as by Premier Golda Meir and Ambassador Abba Eban of the State of Israel.

In conclusion, I join with the millions of people dedicated to human rights who are urging that Soviet Jews be granted all of the rights of full Soviet citizenship and be permitted the right to live as Jews or to emigrate.