Jewish Agency chairman Leon Dulzin said Thursday it was “not impossible” that the gates of the Soviet Union would soon be open again to Jewish emigration, and he added the “hope” that emigrants would be able to travel directly to Israel.
His remarks, in a radio interview, follow two recent cryptic statements by Premier Shimon Peres which both seemed to hold out the hope of imminent progress on the Soviet Jewry question.
Peres made one such statement at a Labor Party meeting in Tel Aviv a week earlier, and the second at a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Jerusalem last week. Peres told the Committee he hoped for “developments” but that he would not elaborate “for obvious reasons.”
Some observers link all three statements to the recent visit to Moscow by Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress. The visit was undertaken with the approval of Peres — but came under scathing criticism from Deputy Premier and Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir who accused the WJC of meddling in an area which ought to be Israel’s diplomatic prerogative.
Meanwhile, Dulzin has taken up the cudgels in defense of Bronfman’s mission to Moscow. He told the WZO Executive this week that the WJC president had gone to the Kremlin with the full knowledge of the Prime Minister, and with his (Dulzin’s) own knowledge and consent.
“The invitation itself, and the talks which were conducted with a very high level personality are of vital importance,” Dulzin said. The attacks on Bronfman were unjustified and “almost tasteless.”
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.
