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Mrs. Tanya Levich, Evgeny’s Mother, Appeals to Nixon to Help Her Son

May 21, 1973
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Mrs. Tanya Levich, the mother of Evgeny Levich who was abducted on a Moscow street last Wednesday and sent to a Siberian military camp, has appealed to President Nixon to intervene with Soviet authorities on behalf of her son, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported today.

Mrs. Levich’s letter to Nixon said that her son was drafted into military service as a private without any proper medical examination.

“Meanwhile,” her letter stated in part, “his diseases are such that fully exclude him from being legally drafted into the army. It is sufficient to point out that he was undergoing medical examination by the Moscow Cancer Dispensary and was receiving x-ray treatment for a tumor. It is obvious that being drafted under such circumstances could turn out to be menacing for Evgeny’s health — and perhaps for his life.

Mr. President I am appealing to you since I’m sure as the President of the United States of America you are deeply concerned with problems of justice and humanism. I am appealing to you — be concerned with the fate of those seeking to emigrate to Israel. I am appealing to you also because I am sure that it is within your powers to save my son and thus our whole family.”

The Israeli Cabinet announced today that the government would cooperate with the Weizmann Foundation and the Jewish Agency to organize a program of events to mark the centenary of the birth of Israel’s first President, the late Dr. Chaim Weizmann, in 1974.

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