David and Esther Markish, the son and widow of the late Soviet Jewish writer Peretz Markish, were granted exit visas and told to leave the Soviet Union by Nov. 6, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed today by Dr. David Korn, chairman of the Soviet Jewry Committee of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington. Dr. Korn said he learned from a telephone conversation with Moscow that the Markishes were issued their visas without paying the education head tax.
In New York, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported today that the two daughters of the late Solomon Mikhoels, head of Moscow’s Yiddish State Theater, have been granted exit visas. Mikhoels was murdered in Minsk in 1948. Students of Soviet affairs believe that his murder was the start of the Stalinist purge of Jewish artists, writers and intellectuals which culminated in 1952 in the murder of Markish. During World War II, Mikhoels, whose real name was Solomon Vovsi, visited western countries in behalf of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
Meanwhile, Mikhail Kliachkin and Julia Smuckler, two Soviet Jewish activists arrived last night in Vienna. They and Gavriel Shapiro, who arrived on a separate flight and was met by his American wife, Judy Silver Shapiro, are all scheduled to leave for Israel in several days, according to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.
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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.
