The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry have obtained and published a major, 5500-word document from eight top Soviet Jewish activists detailing what the "refuseniks" call the "increase in repression and various kinds of persecution against those desirous of emigrating." The text, entitled "Message from Moscow," seeks to refute Soviet Internal Affairs Deputy Minister Boris Shumilin’s widely-circulated contention that the drop in Jewish emigration to 13,900 last year occurred because fewer Soviet Jews sought to leave.
"Message From Moscow" describes in detail distinct methods of intimidation of would-be applicants. They are: refusal to grant emigration permission; army call-ups of persons requesting permission to emigrate; judicial prosecution; action against Jewish activists; attempts to isolate the investigation against the journal, "Jews in the USSR"; and the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist campaign in the press.
"A completely new phenomenon has been the publication in many newspaper articles," the activists say, whose purpose is "not merely a means of intimidating Jewish activists but isolating such Jews from all other Jews." They quote statements about Zionists from the Soviet press including one which states that "From the very first years of the seizure of power in Germany by the Fascists, they (the Zionists) were, body and soul, in the service of the Hitlerite cannibals."
The authors of "Message From Moscow" are Dina Beiline Vladimir Slepak, Ida Nydel, Vitaly Rubin, Alexander Luntz, Eitan Finkelstein. Alexander Lerner and Anatoly Sharansky.
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.
