75 Muscovite Jews Appeal to U Thant to Aid Them on Emigration to Israel

Seventy-five Muscovite Jews wrote yesterday to United Nations Secretary General U Thant seeking his aid on emigration to Israel. Copies of their letter were sent to the Soviet Foreign Ministry and to the UN Information Office, both in Moscow. Mr. Thant is scheduled to meet there later this month with Swedish Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring, his special Middle East envoy, on the question of resuming Dr. Jarring’s peace mission. (In New York, a UN spokesman said Mr. Thant had not yet received the Russians’ plea.) The letter to Mr. Thant declared, in part: “All of us are laborers. The majority lost their relatives who fought against Fascism. Many of our relatives perished in Fascist concentration camps. Today many of us are subjected to humiliation for the mere desire to go to Israel, lose our jobs and are deprived of the right to good working conditions.” The 75 signers most of whom described themselves as “engineers” and all of whom listed their addresses as well as their names–said they did not seek approval of a Jewish “national life” in the Soviet Union. “We ask only one thing,” they wrote. “Let those Jews who want to go to Israel.”