President Georges Pompidou, who is meeting today and tomorrow with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, is expected to raise the question of Soviet Jewry and to plead for an easing of their exit restrictions. Maurice Schumann, Foreign Minister of France is accompanying Pompidou. Both officials are due to return to Paris tomorrow night. The French President told French Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan that he intends to raise this issue during his talks with the First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Pompidou said this when the Chief Rabbi called on him last week to present the Jewish community’s best wishes for the new year.
Pompidou said at the time that he was aware of the situation of Soviet Jewry, and that out of humanitarian considerations, would talk to Brezhnev about it. He recalled that both he and General de Gaulle had in the past often intervened on behalf of Jews subject to persecution or discrimination. It is known that the two Presidents have intervened on behalf of Moroccan and Iraqi Jews and have also raised the subject of Soviet Jewry on a number of occasions.
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.
