A group of seven Soviet Jews who left the Soviet Union only a few days ago said here today that conditions have recently worsened. anti-Semitism is on the increase and the authorities are cracking down sharper than before on would-be emigrants. The seven were giving a press conference within the framework of the second World Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Irma Chernyak, a 46-year-old former lecturer at the Leningrad Air Industry Institute who arrived in Vienna last Friday, said that the Jews he knows are afraid to lose their jobs at the slightest suspicion that they contemplate leaving. Many are afraid of harassment and even imprisonment, he added,
Another recent arrival, Mordechai Pritzker, said that if the Soviet authorities would lift all exit restrictions, four million Jews would avail themselves of this opportunity. There are only some three million known Jews in the USSR but most of the new arrivals believe that at least another million Jews are living in the Soviet Union under different nationalities.
The conference presidium and its steering committee met this afternoon to discuss the setting up of a permanent body to act on behalf of Soviet Jewry between conferences. Some of the delegates called for such an organization which could better guide and supervise current work.
One of the projects under consideration is to empower the presidium and the steering committee to undertake this responsibility without actually setting up a new organization. The presidium is also reportedly discussing the relative weight to be given to demands for emigration and to internal rights when they issue the final declaration at the conclusion of the conference tomorrow.
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.
