Granting of Exit Visas Depends on Where Soviet Jews Live and Nature of Their Jobs

Obtaining an exit visa from Soviet authorities to go to Israel is relatively easy for some Jews in the USSR while others experience lengthy delays and harassment, Jewish sources in the Soviet Union reported today. The nature of the experience seems to depend on where the Jewish applicants live and the nature of their employment, the sources said. Of the 130,000 Jews in the Byelo-Russian Soviet Republic, an estimated ten percent want to go to Israel but there may be many more too frightened to apply for visas, the sources said. The stigma attached to a visa application in Minsk and other Byelo-Russian cities Is much greater than in Moscow or Leningrad, the Soviet Union’s largest metropolises. Anti-Semitic incidents have been reported in Minsk recently, one in a factory.

On the other hand, visas are obtainable without much difficulty in the Crimean city of Odessa, In Czernowicz and Kishinev, the sources reported. In Odessa, 40 families received visas in a single day and In Czernowicz as many as 30 visas are issued on certain days. Fifty Jewish families received exit visas during a single week in Kishinev although a number of individual Jews there have experienced harassment in connection with their applications. According to one rumor, the stepped-up issuance of exit visas to Jewish families coincided with the need for flats by Red Army officers. However, almost all the flats vacated by Jews are still unoccupied, the sources reported.

Exit visas are denied mainly to discharged Red Army men and Jews engaged in security work. A number of young people have gone to Israel from Odessa, leaving their aged parents behind. The sources reported long queues outside the visa offices in Czernowicz. Almost all applications are dealt with promptly and visas are issued without delay when all documents are in order.