Rep. Edward I. Koch (D.,N.Y.) has asked President Nixon to intercede on behalf of emigration rights for Soviet Jews when he visits Moscow next May for a summit conference with Soviet leaders. In a letter to Nixon made public today, Koch stated: “One major issue that I hope you will include in the agenda of your discussion is the desire of many Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union.” Koch was the author of the Soviet Jewry Relief Act, a measure proposing the issuance of 30,000 non-quota visas for Soviet Jews to come to the United States. He dropped that legislation last month after Attorney General John M. Mitchell promised to use the parole authority he has under existing law to bring into this country Soviet Jews permitted to leave and who wish to come here.
“What in effect is now the situation is that one half of the problem has been resolved: The Soviet Jews can be assured they would be welcome in the United States,” Koch’s letter to the President stated. But, it continued, “the crucial aspect of that issue, namely obtaining the freedom of those Jews, is yet to be resolved. As a member of Congress and an American of Jewish faith, I urge you to speak out on this issue and in particular to use your good offices when you arrive in Moscow to seek the freedom of emigration so desperately longed for by Soviet Jews held in a sense captive by the USSR as they were 4,000 years ago in Babylonia.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
