At least 14 additional Jewish activists have been ordered to report for active duty in the Soviet Army Reserves, it was reported today by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. The total is now 27. Of the 14, one is from Moscow, Leonid Kelner; one is from Sverdlovsk, Mark Levin; 11 are from Riga and one from Kovno. The NCSJ also identified the two activists ordered this weekend into active duty as Leonid Tsypin and Prof. Aleksander Voronel. both from Moscow. Twenty-six of the activists are in their 20’s while Prof. Voronel is 41 years old.
At the same time, Richard Maass, chairman of the NCSJ, reported that 20 Soviet Jewish activist have received permission to emigrate. “We in the United States are overjoyed for those allowed to leave,” he said, “but we fear for the well being of Soviet Jews remaining, and particularly for those who have already been drafted or notified that they will be called up. This present wave of punishing activists prior to President Nixon’s visit can only be interpreted as a substitution of military service for imprisonment.”
Maass also stated that Levin’s wife, Anna, has expressed fears that her husband may be detained even further in the Soviet Union after his two-year term of service is completed. According to common Soviet practice, Maass observed. Levin will then have had access to Russian military technology.
SIX FAMILIES RENOUNCE CITIZENSHIP
Meanwhile, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported that the Moscow regional military commander warned the parents of Gavriel Shapiro today that unless he reports for military induction at 9 a.m. Wednesday he will be tracked down and put on trial. Shapiro is one of the Jewish activists In Moscow who was ordered to report for military duty since applying for exit visas to go to Israel. Shapiro and others have been in hiding but Soviet authorities apparently know where to find them, the SSSJ said. According to the SSSJ, six Moscow families have renounced their Soviet citizenship as a gesture of support of the men ordered into military service.
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