Conservative rabbis here went on record opposing Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s request that the United States change the refugee status of Soviet Jewish emigres since unlike other emigres they have Israel to go to as a homeland.
Members of the Rabbinical Assembly, holding their 87th annual convention here, adopted a strong resolution calling for no further cultural exchanges, continued enforcement of the Jackson-Vanik trade restriction amendment and no expansion of trade with the USSR “unless there is a substantial improvement in the Soviet human rights position, especially the levels of Jewish emigration.”
The rabbis hoped that changes announced this week by some Jewish leaders that 11,000 Soviet Jews would soon be granted visas and that others would be allowed to teach Hebrew and Jewish cultural subjects as promised by Soviet authorities would “become a reality.”
“This would constitute an important breakthrough in U.S.-Soviet relations,” commented Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, Rabbinical Assembly executive vice president.
“If these reports are carried out we should recognize and acknowledge that an important change had occurred in Soviet policy,” said Kelman. “I hope that this will lead to full normalization of relations between the great powers, Israel and the Soviet Union and, most important, a Soviet Jewish community relating to the world Jewish community.”
Kelman stated that “I would like to see Soviet Jews and American Jews who want to go to Israel and help build and strengthen Israel do so by their own choice and not by coercion.”
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