Press Release - 06.08.99

Contact: Shai Franklin, (202) 898-2500

NCSJ Hears Brzezinski, Acclaims Senate Letter

(l.-r.) NCSJ Executive Director Mark Levin, NCSJ Chairman Denis Braham, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, NCSJ President Howard Sachs

WASHINGTON—Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said Monday that Russia’s current status is "ambiguous, uncertain and even threatening," and suggested that the instability could continue for generations. Dr. Brzezinski, Counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, addressed an audience of over 100 at the Board of Governors meeting of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ).

Also attending the policy luncheon were the ambassadors of Azerbaijan, Lithuania and Ukraine; diplomats from Belarus, Canada, Estonia, Israel, the Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Romania, Russia and Uzbekistan; officials from the White House, State Department, U.S. Congress and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; representatives from AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith, Hadassah, HIAS, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, the Religious Action Center, United Jewish Communities, Women’s American ORT and other major Jewish organizations; grassroots community activists, and leading policy experts. "The diversity of people who have all come to hear him speak," NCSJ Chairman Denis Braham noted in his introduction of Dr. Brzezinski, "is a testament to his invaluable insight and the enormous respect he has garnered in Washington and indeed across the country and around the world."

Braham and NCSJ President Howard Sachs also highlighted a letter to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, sponsored by U.S. Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Joseph Biden (D-DE) and already signed by 99 Senators, expressing concern over growing anti-Semitism in Russia and urging President Yeltsin to condemn this phenomenon more forcefully. "While we support a strong effort to address the economic difficulties in Russia and encourage the development of a strong, market-oriented economy," the letter stated, "we want you to know that the United States also expects from Russia a strong commitment to human rights and religious freedom."

With Senate letter to President Yeltsin: (l.-r.) NCSJ Executive Director Mark Levin, Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Joseph Biden (D-DE), and Jason Isaacson, American Jewish Committee's Director of Governmental and International Affairs

Dr. Brzezinski observed that while the Russian elite still entertains thoughts of regaining Russia’s former superpower status, the public at-large is indifferent to nostalgia for the Soviet Union. The younger elite is less geared toward the empire model and more toward the nation-state, and he expects that group to be increasingly inclined toward "geo-political pluralism".