One the last day of the late, unlamented year, the Worker, organ of the Communist conspiracy in the United States, published an editorial aimed at the Jewish people. Titled "Chanukah's Tradition," it is a stupefying lesson in brazenness.

"The beginning of Chanukah - Feast of Lights - last week is a reminder once again of the magnificent record of the Jewish people's struggle for freedom and liberty."

Thus spake the Worker, and even opponents of Mother Russia's movement for freedom must be moved to sights of admiration for the cool audacity and sheer gall of the American representatives of Soviet Jewry's oppressors.

And yet, one is sadly but absolutely convinced that there are Jews who will be moved by these words to feelings of magnanimity for Gus Hall's hate sheet. The yearning to be loved and the eagerness to believe the capacity of the leopard to change its spots is most clearly typified by the recent tour of the Polish Yiddish State Theater, during which thousands of Jews sold their souls for a few Yiddish words. Surely even Esau got a better deal than this...

And just as Poland succeeded in making some forget their purge of Jews, their hatred of Israel, their banning of the Joint Distribution Committee and its aid for needy Jews and their vicious resurgence of anti-Semitism through a few Yiddish words, so one may be sure that the little editorial in the Worker in praise of Chanukah, will also find a sympathetic chord in the hearts of our more gullible Jews.

But, rather than consign the editorial to its proper resting place - the nearest trash can - it would be far better to discuss some of the more recent contributions of the Worker's Moscow masters in furthering this "magnificent record of the Jewish people for freedom and liberty."

In 1948, the struggle of the Jewish people for freedom and liberty, for the right to live free of progroms and attacks by Muzhiks that had so marked their history in places like Russia, for the right to live their religious identity in freedom and security, reached a dramatic climax with the establishment of the third Jewish commonwealth, the State of Israel.

Moscow's attitude toward this yearning for freedom is well known but lest one think that with the comparative calm that has settled over the Middle East, Moscow has stilled its vicious incitement and shut the flow of poison against Israel, he is sadly mistaken.

The following are some very recent comments from the government-controlled Soviet press. We commend them to the attention of the editorial staff of the Worker.

"In the practical application of Zionism to the affairs of the Middle East, there are elements of genocide, racism, perfidy, aggression and annexation - all characteristics of fascism.

"The notorious 'expansion for Lebensraum' principle was at the root of Hitlerite Germany's aggression. Israel is now elevating this principle to the rank of foreign policy...

"While fascism was at its height, the Zionists cooperated actively with Nazi chiefs and, in a number of instances, acted as their direct accomplices. Today, the German reactionaries are rendering invaluable services to Zionism..."
("How Far Lunacy?" by E. Evseyev, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moscow)

�Still another vicious attack on Zionism and Israel, the last hope of countless refugees and displaced persons, comes in an article, "The Jewish 'Racists'," by Yuri Ivanov:

"Zionism today is an ideology, a system of organization and practice of the Jewish imperialistic bourgeoisie. Its basic content is anti-Communism. It is just this, the anti-Communism of the international Zionist corporation, of smart dealers in politics and finance, religion and trade, that has strengthened Zionism and turned it into a reliable driving-belt for the United States and her military apparatus...

"In other words, it is to fight against the Socialist camp, against the Communist, the workers' and the national liberation movements...

"When a new and perfidious aggression against the progressive Arab world was perpetrated, the Zionist machine worked to full capacity. At present, when all progressive humanity demands that Israel, the aggressor, liquidate the results of the war, the international Zionist network administers its dirty affairs with redoubled energy.

"Zionism is not, by any means, obsolete. it was and is to this day a dangerous weapon of the imperialist West, an enemy of workers of all nationalities."
(Translated from Novosti Press Agency, Moscow)

There is much, much more but one final example will suffice to indicate that the Jewish people are still the beneficiaries of Moscow's peculiar aid in achieving that "freedom and liberty" the Worker speaks of.

In 1963, when Nikita Khrushchev was still not yet a non-person, the Kremlin embarked on one of its more notorious anti-Semitic campaigns. The height of the obscenity was reached with the publication of the infamous "Judaism Without Embellishment," a thinly veiled anti-Semitic attack upon Judaism and Jews, replete with cartoons worthy of Der Sturmer, of Julius Streicher fame.

The book was so blatantly anti-Semitic that it horrified the Communist parties of Western Europe and America, for fear that they would lose their hold on the Western electorate. Consequently, the book was withdrawn and its author, Trofim Kichko, consigned to the intellectual woodwork.

It was, therefore, somewhat of a shock to all believers in Communist repentance to find that Kichko had returned to the pages of the Soviet press. The following is an excerpt from his first article since his return - the comeback statement of an anti-Semite:

"In order to justify the influx of Jews into Israel and its aggression against neighboring Arab states, the Zionists have shed hypocritical tears over the 'eternal suffering' of the Jews.

"Out of 2.6 million inhabitants of Israel, approximately 500,000 are doomed to semi-starvation. Even more hopeless is the situation of Israeli immigrants who have been caught in the nets of Zionist bankers.

"Chained to the imperialist chariot, the ruling circle of Israel have pushed their country into a war with the Arab world. Poisoned by chauvinism, Israeli youth became a tool in the hands of the adventurists, men like Moshe Dayan..."

Kichko had just begun to hate. Writing of an alleged Israeli student named Osman, who had called for the retention of the present boundaries as the true borders of Israel from Biblical times, Kichko says:

"During the period of Israeli aggression, the aforementioned Osman might have been among those who marched over the corpses of Arab women and children, driven by the pathological obsession to exterminate the Arabs."
("A Pathological Obsession," by Trofim Kichko, Komsomolskoye Znamaya, Kiev)

The pathological obsession is, of course, Moscow's. It is an obsession with Jews that has its roots in the anti-Semitism of Russia that dates back centuries.

The Worker is correct when it depicts Chanukah as the holiday representing Jewry's struggle for freedom and liberty. What it neglects to point out is that Jewish freedom and liberty was imperiled throughout the ages by nations such as the Soviet Union which attempts to destroy Judaism's right to exist.

Judah Maccabee fought against edicts that forbade the dissemination of Torah. Another nation, in our times, is attempting to do the very same to the children of those Maccabees. We give our solemn pledge to the Worker and its Moscow masters that we will fight them just as our ancestors fought kindred tyrants of their time.

And a happy Chanukah to you too, Worker.