Speech #980005925

The cruel denial of equal rights continues in employment and education. obstacles to religious and cultural expression proliferate. and antiJewish propaganda fills the media. In 1950. Jews constituted 15 percent of all scientific workers in the Soviet Union. today. the figure is less than 5 percent. A quota system at most universities and in hiring policies has resulted in an increasingly smaller number of Jewish university students and professionals. The antiJewish discriminatory pattern in higher education poses a direct challenge to historic job opportunities and traditional lifestyles of Soviet Jews. The Soviet Government has long pursued a policy aimed at suppressing Jewish culture and at severing Soviet Jewry from its cultural heritage.