An Israeli expert is to travel to Belarus to check the level of radioactivity in the region stemming from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The Jewish Agency for Israel said it was ready to evacuate all Jews from Belarus because of fears of rising radioactivity in the area. But Belarus officials and Jewish sources say rumors of increased radioactivity, reportedly caused by a series of forest fires in neighboring Ukraine, are false. The Israeli Embassy in Minsk and some Jewish organizations have evacuated their staff because of the reports.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
