Russian Jews Arriving in Israel Report Thaw in Soviet Emigration Policy

TEL AVIV (JTA) — A large
group of Soviet Jews who arrived
in Israel Wednesday said there
was a noticeable thaw in the Rus-
sian attitude toward visa appli-
cants and in the treatment of emi-
grating Jews by Soviet authori-
ties.
The number of new arrivals
was not immediately disclosed.
They included a group of Jews
from Riga, Latvia, who reported
that the head of the Ovir (visa
office) there was removed from
his post because he had mistreated
a Jewish woman who came to in-
quire about her visa application.
Other newcomers reported that
Soviet officials behaved more
politely to visa applicants than
hitherto. A group from Wilda,
Lithuania, said that for the first
time they were treated correctly
by officials. The Jews reported
that applicants whose visa requests
had been turned down were being
advised by authorities to apply
again. In some cases applications
more than a year old were being
reconsidered, they said.
The incident in Riga involved
Mrs. • Feiga Simkova, who was
part of a group of 30 Jews who
went to the local Ovir recently
to inquire about the fate of their
visa applications. According to
a renort received by the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency last week,
Mrs. Simkova was insulted by
an official named Kaija and wa;
jailed for 10 days. The arrivals
from Riga Wednesday did not
mention a jailing.
An informed Jewish source in
New York disclosed the names of
seven of the 18 Jews who • tried
without success Tuesday to speak
to high Soviet officials on behalf
of Jews who have been held in
detention for the past nine month
without trial. The group visited
the headquarter of the Soviet
Communist Party Central Commit-
tee and the Supreme Soviet in
Moscow.
(According to the source it in-
cluded the wives of the prisoners
Butman, Kaminsky, Yagman, Kor-
enblit, Mogilever and the mother
of Hillel Shur, all from Leningrad,
and the wife of Levit from Ki-
shinev.)
(A Soviet Jew who emigrated to
Israel in 1969 has begun a sit-in
and hunger strike in a simulated
"prisoner's cage" opposite the
White House grounds to dramatize
the plight of Soviet Jews.
(Yosef Schneider informed the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency that
he intends to remain there until
Sunday when several student ac-
tivist groups will demonstrate for
Russian Jews near the Soviet Em-
bassy.
(Schneider said the reason for
his action is to bring to attention
the plight of Russian Jews. Four
of his friends were imprisoned in
Riga seven months ago, he said.)
Aharon Bogdanovsky, a native of
Kharkov who emigrated to Israel
last year, reported Tuesday that
12 more Jewish residents of that
city have received exit visas and
were supposed to have left Mon-
day for Israel via Vienna. Bogda-
novsky, who is in Haifa, said he
got the information through a tele-
phone call he made to Jewish
friends in Kharkov. He said the 12
permits were the first granted to
Kharkov Jews in more than a year.
Soviet Emigre Who Was
in Prison 10 Years Says
250,000 Jews Ask to Leave
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Mrs.
Luba Bershadskaya, who spent 10
years in three Soviet prison camps,
believes about 250,000 Jews in the
Soviet Union have asked for visas
for emigration to Israel.
She said she based her estimate

Tekoah's Son Bar Mitzva

NEW YORK — Ambass a-
dor and Mrs. Yosef Tekoah have
announced the Bar Mitzva of their
son Gilead will take place Satur-
day morning at Cong. Kehilath
Jeshurun, Manhattan. A reception
is planned at the nearby Croydon
Hotel.

on information she had acquired
from friends and her frequent
visits to the visa office in Moscow
before her departure for Israel
last July, and from sources in Is-
rael. Mrs. Bershadskaya's figure,
given to the JTA, compared favor-
ably with the statement by Israel
Absorption Minister Nathan Peled
in the Knesset on Sunday that the
total number of Russian Jews who
want to come to Israel was believ-
ed to run into tens of thousands if
not hundreds of thousands.
In her private opinion, Mrs.
Bershadskaya said, a million and
a half of the more than three
million Jews in the Soviet Union
would emigrate immediately if
they were allowed to leave. Mrs.
Bershadskaya gave the interview
after a luncheon with a dozen
congressmen in the House dining
room. The luncheon was sponsored
by Rep. James Scheuer, New York
Democrat. Mrs. Bershadskaya de.
plored violence as a manifestation
of solidarity with Soviet Jews. She
said that Jews in Russia receive
information about what is said of
them in the outside world from
the Voice of America, Kol Israel,
the BBC, Radio Liberty, all based
in West Germany, and the Cana-
dian Broadcasting Co.
President Nixon expressed deep
personal concern over the plight
of Soviet Jews and said the world
must be made aware of it, accord-
ing to Rabbi Joshua Haberman,
of the Reform Washington Hebrew
Congregation, who delivered the
sermon at the ecumenical worship
services held in the White House.
Rabbi Haberman told the JTA that
the President referred to Soviet
Jews in private conversation with
him after the sermon. He expressed
the view that all human beings
have the right to emigrate in order
to live in freedom, Rabbi Haber-
man said.

19-Year-Old Jewish Soldier
in Soviet Army Demands
Discharge, Right to Emigrate
NEW YORK (JTA)—A 19-year-
old Jewish soldier in the Soviet
Army has demanded a discharge
and the right to go to Israel, the
JTA learned. According to relia-
ble sources, Leonid Kolchinsky,
formerly_ of Kharkov, submitted
his demand to his commanding of-
ficer and sent a copy to Gen. Lepi-
shev, chief political commissar
for the Soviet Army. The sources
said that Kolchinsky was drafted
last Dec. 29 after trying unsuc-
cessfully for more than a year to
obtain an exit visa. Last May he
wrote the Supreme Soviet saying
he vas voluntarily giving up his
Soviet citizenship. Last October he
was jailed for 20 days after an
argument with a notary public in
Kharkov named Boyteva who re-
fused to notarize documents
authorizing a friend to act on his
behalf to secure a visa. He con-
tracted pneumonia in jail and was
not fully recovered when he was
drafted, the sources said. Last
November he was officially in-
formed by Gregory Nazarenko, a
foreign ministry representative,
that his visa request was denied.
According to the sources, the young
man wants his case brought before
world opinion even though it could
seriously jeopardize him as a
member of the Soviet armed forces.
Copies of a petition signed by
100 Jewish workers of Riga, de-
manding the right to emigrate to
Israel and addressed to the "Dele-
gates of the 24th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union" which will take place at
the end of the month, and to "Lead-
ers and Members of the Delega-
tions of the Communist and Work-
ers Parties" who will attend the
Congress, arrived at the offices of
the American Jewish Committee
here through contacts in Europe.
Jewish students who had been
braving the biting cold of winter
weather ended their 72-hour fast-
vigil which they had conducted
near the Soviet mission to the
United Nations. Several of the 25
students who formed the core of
the vigil-fast said they were "very
tired and cold but very deter-

mined" to continue. Several of the
students reported that they had
been near fainting as a result of
the fast but refused to leave the
vigil. They were joined by a large
contingent of students from nearby
Hunter College. During the three-
day fast several hundred students
from metropolitan area schools
participated in the vigil in addition
to some 150 youngsters from local
yeshivot.
18 Jewish Families Appeal
to Queen for Emigration Aid
LONDON (JTA)—Eighteen Soviet
families in Georgia, who have been
refused permission to emigrate to
Israel, have appealed to Queen
Elizabeth to help them. In a letter
written in Russian, the Georgian
Jews declared that they were "en-
titled to emigrate." They related
that they had all received invita-
tions from relatives in Israel and
promises from Soviet officials that
they would be allowed to leave
without impediment. Trusting this
promise, they wrote, they sold all
their property and homes, and
resigned from the positions they
held.
"We filled out the forms and re-
membered the promises. A year
passed and nothing happened,"
they wrote. They begged the queen
to bring the "Soviet Jewish ques-
tion" for "debate in any forum,
including the United Nations Gen.
eral Assembly, because time is
passing and we don't know what
awaits us even a month from
now." The signatories appealed to
her to "use all your prestige and
your influence, sparing no time
or effort, because on the scales
where life is weighed, the good
will be reckoned." At the close of
the letter, they wrote: "Our
prayers are with Israel—pray for
us, your Majesty."
It was learned here that Russia's
top police official, Col. Gen. Niko-
lai A. Shchelokov, met with about
50 Soviet Jews who want to emi-
grate to Israel and promised them
an answer soon on whether they

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will be permitted to leave. Accord-
ing to sources, the 110 Jews who
staged a sit-in in the reception
room of the Presidium of the Su-
preme Soviet in Moscow, and
vowed to go on a hunger strike,
called off the strike on the strength
of Shchelokov's promise.
Fifty Jewish youths, including
some student members of the
Front for the Liberation of Soviet
Jewry, staged a sit-in in the offices
of Tass, the official Soviet news
agency. The youths, who left
peacefully when police arrived,
said they staged their sit-in in
support of those Jews who were
staging a sit-in in the waiting room
of the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet in Moscow. •
Australian Communist Party
Leader Accuses Kremlin
of Anti-Semitic Tracts
VIENNA (JTA) — A leading
Australian Communist recently

14—Fri day, March 19, 1971

published an article here in which
he lashed out at the Kremlin for
"its violation of basic liberties"
including its circulation of "anti-
Semitic material" in the Soviet
Union.
Writing in the dissident Commu-
nist j o u r n a 1, Tagebuch, Eric
Aarons, one of the leading mem-
bers of the tiny 5,000-member
Australian Communist party,
termed Soviet propaganda as anti-
Semitic "whether in the form of
crude anti-religious propaganda or
crude anti-Zionism."
The Soviets responded to Aaron's
article with a highly critical one
in Novoe Vremya, a weekly inter-
national affairs periodical, accus-
ing him, his brother Laurie and
other Australian leaders of making
"unfriendly and even hostile state-
ments" about the Kremlin.

One's real life is often the life
that one does not lead.

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