THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
April 16, 1976 13
Brussels 11: Demonstrating Aetc Strength and Unity
By RICHARD COHEN
Associate Executive Director,
American Jewish Congress
(Editor's note: Richard
Cohen served as chief
press officer for the Brus-
sels Conferences of 1971
and 1976.)
Brussels I touched off the
international struggle for
Soviet Jewry, focussing the
world's attention on a si-
tuation whose concern had
been limited to a handful of
Jewish activists inside and
outside the USSR.
Brussels II convincingly
demonstrated the breadth
and scope of the Soviet Je-
wry movement, underscor-
ing the participation of men
and women from many
walks of life and many
countries, and making clear
that the struggle would con 7
tinue until the three million
Jews of the USSR were free
to emigrate and to live as
Jews.
Brussels III will be a cele-
bration — that the Soviet
Union has decided to obey
its own constitution and
laws and permit Jews to
emigrate and to pass on
their religious and cultural
heritage to their children.
This was the promise of
Yosef Almogi, chairman of
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the Jewish Agency and
head of the Brussels pre-
sidium, in his address at
the closing session of the
second World Conference
on Soviet Jewry.
In the ,23 years from the
birth of Israel to Brussels I,
only 10,000 Jews had been
permitted to leave the
USSR. In 1971, the year of
Brussels I, some 14,000 Jews
were granted exit visas. The
following year saw 31,000
Jews granted permission to
emigrate and in 1973, the
number rose still higher, to
35,000.
But in 1974, as Congress
debated the Jackson-Vanik
Amendment, the Soviets cut
the figure back to 20,000.
And in 1975, when the Rus-
sians repudiated the assur-
ances they had given Secre-
tary of State Henry
Kissinger that the rate of
emigration from the USSR
would increase and that
punitive action against
those seeking to emigrate
would end, the rate of Jew-
ish emigration was cut back
still further, to 13,000.
During the same year of
1975, more than 50,000 Jews
in the USSR either re-
quested family-reunion affi-
davits from relatives in Is-
rael — the first step in the
emigration process — or
renewed expired ones, thus
giving the lie to Soviet prop-
aganda that Jewish emigra-
tion was down because Jews
had no reason to leave.
Brussels I was called in
response to the shocking
death sentences imposed
on a group of Jews for a
crime that never took
place — an attempt to es-
cape the USSR by air that
was stopped before the
would-be escapees even
got off the ground. At the
time there was no Jewish
emigration to Israel; in-
deed, there was no evi-
dence that the Kremlin
would even hear — much
less respond to — demands
for the right to emigrate to
Israel.
Brussels II was different
because the leaders of the
Soviet regime have shown
themselves to be sensitive to
world criticism and respon-
sive to world pressures.
Among the delegates
Over 45 Years
Of
1 , ! I!!11 ■ 11".11,:il
Moving Experience
were representatives of the
100,000 Soviet Jews who had
come to Israel since the first
Brussels Conference — her-
oes of our time like Victor
Polsky, a founder of the
Soviet Jewry movement in-
side the USSR; Eva But-
man, whose husband Hillel
is still in a Soviet prison
camp serving a 15-year-
term for treason; and Silva
Zalmanson, waiting for her
husband and her two broth-
ers to complete their own
long prison terms.
Brussels II differed be-
cause there was now broad
understanding that the
demand of Soviet Jews for
the right to live as Jews in
Israel was indissolubly
linked to their right to dis-
cover and experience what
it meant to be Jewish.
In the Soviet Union nearly
200,000 others who had ap-
plied to emigrate were wait-
ing for exit visas. And, ac-
cording to the testimony of
the former Soviet Jews
themselves, there were
hundreds of thousands
more awaiting the moment
to take action on the deci-
sion they had long ago made
Illegal Arab Student Visas
May Find State Dept. in Court
WASHINGTON (JTA) —
Rep. Joshua Eilberg (D-Pa.)
has disclosed that he is con-
sidering taking legal action
against Secretary of State
Henry A. Kissinger and
other State Department of-
ficials for refusing to take
action on the issuance of il-
legal visas to Arab students
in the United States.
Eilberg said he has in-
structed attorneys of the
House judiciary subcommit-
tee on immigration, citizen-
ship and international law
to prepare such action: He is
the subcommittee chair-
man.
In addition, he said he has
asked the U.S. Attorney
General to advise him on
what other action can be
taken by the Department of
Justice to force the State
Department to stop this
practice. In a further step,
Eilberg has asked the Com-
missioner of the Immigra-
tion and Naturalization
Service to order immigra-
tion officers not to permit
students with illegally is-
sued visas to enter the coun-
try.
Eilberg said that for 20
years the State Depart-
ment has been issuing
"official" A-2 visas to
students from Saudi Ara-
bia and Kuwait instead of
the normal and more re-
strictive F visas which are
given to students of all
other countries. The A-2
classification, he noted,
"is clearly diplomatic sta-
tus for an official of a for-
eign government."
The U.S. government, Eil-
berg noted, has no control
over the approximately 5,-
000 students from Saudi Ar-
abia and Kuwait in the U.S.
and does not know where
they are or what they are
doing or if they are even reg-
istered in a school.
Unlike the other 80,000
foreign students, they do
not have to attend class reg-
ularly nor do they have to
maintain a passing average.
In addition, Eilberg said,
these students do not have
to file the required forms
which would permit the
immigration service to mon
itor their activities.
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JERUSALEM (JTA) —
The Israeli Knesset Monday
wrote the Russian writer
Alexander Solzhenitsyn at
his home in Switzerland,
inviting him to visit Israel.
The letter hailed
Solzhenitsyn as a cam-
paigner on behalf of Israel
and Zionism, as well as hu-
man rights of the Russian
people. It assured him that
he would be welcomed
warmly by academics, writ-
ers, and above all, ordinary
Israelis.
.
vS
c,ec
-
Knesset Seeking
Solzhenitsyn Visit
POTTER
in their hearts.
It was the vow of every
Brussels delegate that the
100,000 Jews of the USSR
who had come to Israel
would, when the history of
the Soviet Jewry struggle
was finally written, be but
the vanguard of the great
movement that must yet
come.
hil