A delegation from the Zionist Organization of America today presented a petition with more than 60,000 signatures to Leonard Garment, special consultant to President Nixon, urging that the President take up the “repatriation” of Soviet Jews to Israel during his scheduled meeting next week with Russian leaders. Garment told the ZOA delegation that he would make sure the petition receives “prompt and full consideration.”
The petition asks Nixon to “advocate the cause” of those Soviet Jews who have been imprisoned because of their wish to settle in Israel and “their devotion to Jewish culture, traditions and history”; calls on Nixon to “bring before the United Nations” the problems of Soviet Jews “who desire to emigrate to Israel” and “who are prosecuted and imprisoned when they request such permission”; and states that “this basic right” is refused to the “overwhelming majority” of Soviet Jews, contrary to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights of which the Soviet Union is signatory.
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.
