“Brussels II, where Jews and non-Jews joined to emphasize the rights of Soviet Jews to leave for Israel was a prelude to the 25th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party which has just opened in Moscow. We have every hope that this Congress will show greater sensitivity to the needs and rights of Soviet Jews and that they will be given the freedom to emigrate to Israel.”
This view was expressed by Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson, chairman of the American Section of the World Zionist Organization and one of the three co-chairmen of the second World Conference on Soviet Jewry, upon her return here yesterday from the conference in Brussels.
“The Soviet authorities had attacked Brussels I (in 1971) as ‘anti-Soviet provocation’ and an ‘impudent attempt at open interference’ in internal Soviet affairs, yet within weeks they were issuing exit visas to Jews who had been demanding to leave,” she said.
This time, too, the Soviet authorities attacked the conference and even staged a press-conference of Jews they claimed had been disillusioned by the hardships of life in Israel and the corruption of its government. “But once again, they are issuing visas: a group of 100 Jews, some of whom had applications pending since 1971, arrived in Tel Aviv just this week–the first group of many waiting to leave despite Soviet protestations that all applications have been dealt with,” Mrs. Jacobson stated.
NOT AN ANTI-SOVIET PARLEY
“Soviet sensitivity to the pressure of public opinion is important,” she said, “and is eloquent testimony to the significance of conferences such as the two Brussels sessions.”
The success of the conference, of course, is not expressed solely in the freeing of another hundred Jews, Mrs. Jacobson observed. “It lies in the placing of the right of Soviet Jews to aliya back on the international agenda and the renewing of pressure on the Soviet authorities for their release,” she said.
Brussels II “was not an anti-Soviet conference,” she said, “but a pro-Soviet-Jews conference. And it is our fervent prayer that we will not have to convene a Brussels III–except to rejoice over the freedom of Soviet Jewry.”
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