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STATEMENT OF THEODORE MANN, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOVIET JEWRY, ACCOMPANIED BY JERRY GOODMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Mr. MANN. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief.

After your opening remarks, it is perfectly apparent to me that to talk on this subject to the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations is like delivering coal to Newcastle. Sometimes a few coals have to be delivered.

I am Theodore Mann of Philadelphia. I am the chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. To my left is Jerry Goodman, executive director of the conference.

We have Aleksandr Goldfarb, a former refusenik and Jewish emigration activist from Moscow, with us, too.

He is on the staff of the Weizmann Institute in Israel and is presently on the faculty of Columbia University.

For those of you not familiar with the national conference, we are comprised of 40 national Jewish membership organizations and nearly 300 local Jewish community councils and committees. Through them we are able to reach every corner of organized Jewish life in the United States and we are and have been an advocacy movement on behalf of Soviet Jews.

Our concern for human rights reflects the historic Jewish concern for all people whose rights are being trampled and we have learned from history when the rights of a minority such as that of the over 2 million Jews in the Soviet Union are threatened, all of us are threatened.

By securing those rights, we are, in fact, helping to secure the rights of all people. Their struggle becomes ours.

The National Conference of Soviet Jewry supports efforts to achieve meaningful détente. The hopes of all people, including that of minorities like Jews in the Soviet Union to achieve security and self-expression, are enhanced in an atmosphere of diminished ten

sions.

In our view, good bilateral obligations demand reciprocation. It is not a one-way street. For too many people, the importance of Soviet Jewry is neither sufficiently understood nor felt.

Let me explain why the rescue of Soviet Jews is felt so deeply by America's 6 million Jews. Soviet Jewry comprises about 20 percent of the entire entity we call World Jewry. That a people which lost one-third of itself a generation ago simply cannot allow the disappearance of another 20 percent in our time is—to us at least-very self-evident.

Today is a Jewish holiday called Tisha b'Av. It is a Jewish fast day commemorating the destruction of the temple in the ancient Jewish commonwealths.

Ours is a very, very tiny people. The one thing we absolutely insist upon is our right to endure as a people now as we have insisted for some 4,000 years.

So part of our effort within the National Council on Soviet Jewry must be to have more Americans come to feel the pain that Soviet Jews feel, the pain that we feel, and that is why we do a number of advocacy things.

One of the most important is that we encourage trips to the Soviet Union to meet these people, and they are taking place at a very accelerating pace.

We do much more in the area of consciousness raising, congressional letter writing, and a variety of other techniques by which we bring the plight of Soviet Jews to the consciousness of the public. Withal, it is true that what has been accomplished by the help of the U.S. Government, the U.S. Congress and many, many well-intentioned people over the past decade has been nothing short of miraculous.

Since 1969 over 160,000 Jews have been rescued. Others still struggle for the rights denied them, and what concerns us most deeply is that we are racing against time. The Jews are at risk in the Soviet Union in a way different from others, and it is that greater risk more than anything else that concerns us. Let me explain that in a couple of sentences.

The U.S.S.R. in the decade ahead, is likely to face hardships much greater than anything else it has faced in the post-Stalin era. If Russian history teaches us anything at all, it is that its leaders, to maintain their power, tend to seek foreign and domestic scapegoats for the dilemmas they are likely to confront. The United States figures to be the foreign scapegoat.

Soviet Jews, as in the past, are likely to be targeted as the domestic scapegoats. Scapegoating has a long and dishonorable history in that part of the world. That is why we feel so-I guess the word is wrong-comfortable, so justified in making our demands upon our own Government to help us in this historic struggle.

The condition of the Soviet Jewish population has steadily deteriorated in recent months and this confirms our worst fears.

This is most evident in the heightened intimidation and harassment of Soviet Jews.

Sovietologists agree that the Jewish religion is singled out by Soviet authorities for more intensive oppression than other religions. Only Hebrew, of all foreign languages, may not be taught to Jews in the Soviet Union. The climate in the Soviet Union has evolved into one in which anti-Semitism thrives and progressively greater injustices are permitted.

As anti-Semitic books and articles, sometimes, but not always, masked as anti-Zionism, are published and very, very widely distributed. Discrimination in education is reaching crisis proportions.

Fourteen years ago there were 112,000 Jewish university students in the Soviet Union. Today there are less than half of that number, but more than any other single statistic, the emigration statistic is the most frightening because the gates have really closed.

One hundred and eighty-two Soviet Jews left in the month of June. For every Jew permitted to leave today, 25 were permitted to leave just several years ago.

As a consequence, the number of refuseniks has swelled to over 10,000. The Soviet Jews are trapped, able neither to live as Jews nor to leave.

At least the czars let them go.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, every facet of Soviet Jewish life has been touched by a seeming shift in Soviet attitudes which contradict those rights guaranteed the Soviet Jewish minority.

The effects of an increasingly repressive and discriminatory policy are seen in the plunging statistics of emigration I have just given you and in the quiet desperation of Soviet Jews themselves. After more than a decade of sustained activity, the member organizations of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry have pledged themselves to initiate new efforts, new programs, and to continue to strive to realize our essential goals of permitting Jews to leave in accordance with international law and standards and of securing for those who have not decided upon their future or who choose to remain, the right to live as Jews within Soviet society with the full rights at least of every other Soviet nationality, the rights of their cultural, historical, and religious heritage.

We welcome each and every and all initiatives by the U.S. Congress and by the administration in support of those goals. Thank you.

[Mr. Mann's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THEODORE R. MANN, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOVIET JEWRY

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

On behalf of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, (NCSJ), I welcome this opportunity to appear today and present some views concerning matters pending before this Committee. With me is our Executive Director, Mr. Jerry Goodman, and Mr. David Harris, Director of our Washington Office. Also with me is Aleksandr Goldfarb, a former refusenik and Jewish emigration activist from Moscow. Dr. Goldfarb is on the staff of The Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, and is presently on the faculty of Columbia University.

For those who are not familiar with the NCSJ, forty national membership organizations, and nearly three hundred local community councils, federations and committees comprise our constituency. Through them we are able to reach every corner of organized Jewish life in the United States.

Our concern for human rights reflects the historic Jewish concern for all people whose rights have been trampled. We have learned from history that when the rights of a minority, such as that of the 2,000,000 Jews in the USSR, are threatened, all people are threatened. By securing those rights we are, in fact, helping secure rights for all people. Their struggle then becomes our struggle.

The National Conference on Soviet Jewry, as the major, singlepurpose agency in this country representing the bulk of this community's work for the Jewish minority in the USSR, supports efforts to achieve a meaningful detente. The hopes of all people, including that of minorities like the Jews in the Soviet Union, will have a better opportunity to achieve security and self-expression in an atmosphere of diminished tensions. In our view, however, good bilateral relations also demand reciprocal obligations. It is not a one-way street.

In the matter of discrimination, the suppression of Jewish religion and culture, and emigration patterns from the Soviet Union, issues of critical concern to many peoples, we are actively pursuing the goal of change. We believe this goal is consistent with basic U.S. foreign policy objectives.

For too many people the importance of Soviet Jewry is neither understood nor felt. Soviet Jewry comprises twenty percent of world Jewry. That a people, which lost one-third of itself a generation ago simply cannot allow the disappearance of another twenty percent in our time, is selfevident. But, it is not self-evident to Americans in general. Perhaps it is because the threat to the Soviet Jew is hidden from view, and we cannot expect Soviet Jews to immolate themselves in order to make news.

And so, part of our effort must be to have more Americans come to feel the pain of the Soviet Jew, and sense the enormity of the loss to our people if we should fail in this task of rescue. That is why we encourage trips to the Soviet Union, and they are taking place at an accelerating pace.

Of course, that is not enough. We do much more in the area of consciousness raising. Programming, such as Congressional letter writing and "twinnings," as well as visits to the USSR which our Washington Office helps coordinate, and a public awareness campaign, come to mind.

Withal, it is true that what we have accomplished in over a decade is nothing short of miraculous. Since 1969 over 260,000 Jews were rescued. But others still struggle for the rights denied them, and we are racing against time. As Professor Seweryn Bialer, of Columbia University's Research Institute on International Change explained to the NCSJ's Policy Conference last May, in Washington, Jews are at risk in the Soviet Union in a different way from others. It is that greater risk that concerns us.

The USSR will face hardships much stronger than anything else it has faced in the post-Stalin era, and may seek foreign and domestic scapegoats for the dilemmas it is likely to confront in this decade. The United States could be labeled the foreign scapegoat and Jews, as in the past, could be targeted as domestic scapegoats. This justifies us in making our demands upon our own government to help us in this great endeavor.

The condition of the Soviet Jewish population has steadily deteriorated in recent months. This is most evident in the curtailment of emigration to a fraction of what it has been in past years. It is evident in the heightened intimidation and harassment of Soviet Jews. Sovietologists agree that the Jewish religion is singled out by Soviet authorities for more intensive oppression than other religious groups. The climate in the Soviet Union has evolved into one in which anti-Semitism thrives and progressively greater injustices are permitted.

EMIGRATION DECLINE

The Jewish emigration statistics reveal what can only be termed a crisis situation. In 1981, the 9,447 approved visas to Israel represented less than half of the previous year's figures. More revealing were the monthly counts which began plummeting in June. The final months of 1981 saw counts of less than 500. This has not happened since effective emigration began in 1971. The first half of 1982 has seen less than 300 Jewish emigrants a month, bringing the mid-year total to a low of 1,537. In June, only 182 Jews managed to leave the Soviet Union. A comparison with the same month in past years illustrates the severity of the squeeze: 1979, 4,358 Jews left the Soviet Union; 1976, 1,175 exited; and in 1972, 3,104 Jews departed.

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