A 23-year-old Belorussian Jew has written to President Zalman Shazar for “all possible aid in the matter of my return to the land of my ancestors, to my fatherland–Israel.” He asked President Shazar to bring his plea to the attention of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Secretary General U Thant and “Jewish communities throughout the world.” The Russian. Isaak Markovich Zhitnisky, wrote that “for a long time I have been unsuccessfully trying to obtain permission to emigrate to the State of Israel for reunification with my relatives and with my people in the Jewish land.” He found, he said, that “the official Soviet organs, however, place various obstacles in the way of the realization of this desire of mine.” He reported that his emigration application of July 23, 1969. was rejected a month later, on Aug. 25, and that “this was followed by my expulsion from the Belorussian Polytechnical Institute.” All of his subsequent “complaints and applications.” he said, “remain unanswered.”
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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.
