Informed sources reported here yesterday that a number of Soviet Jews, including Yosif Kazakov, who have publicly demanded the right to emigrate to Israel have been granted exit visas and given ten days to leave the Soviet Union. The sources said they include members of a group of 39 Moscow Jews who signed and distributed a letter to the Soviet Foreign Ministry denouncing official policies toward Israel and declaring that they were ready to “abandon everything we have to go to Israel, even if we have to walk.” The sources gave the names of four Jews believed to be among those granted visas. They are Julius Telesin. Moisey Landman, Boris Sahlain and Kazakov, all of whom have been described in the government newspaper Izvestia as “social outcasts” long known for their “Zionist views.” Yosif Kazakov is the father of Yasha Kazakov, a 23-year-old Soviet Jewish emigre who recently staged an eight-day hunger strike in front of United Nations headquarters in New York to dramatize his demand for emigration rights for his family in Moscow. The younger Kazakov was permitted to leave Russia two years ago and settled in Israel.
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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.
