House Passes Bill by 359-2 Vote Asking Nixon. State Department to Make Soviet Jewry Priority Issue I

By a nearly unanimous vote, the House of Representatives today passed a bill asking the President and the State Department to make the plight of Soviet Jewry a priority issue in the United Nations and to take “immediate and determined steps” to help Soviet Jews achieve freedom of expression, religion and emigration. The vote was 359-2. Opposing the measure were Reps. John J. Flynt, Jr. (D. Ga.) and Durward G. Hall (R. Mo.). The bill was cosponsored by Reps. John B. Anderson (R. III.) and Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. (D.Mass.).

“You couldn’t have chosen a better day to be here,” Rep. Benjamin S. Rosenthal (D.,NY.) told a Soviet Jewry delegation after announcing the House vote. The 34 visitors–united as the Women’s Interfaith Action for Freedom of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews–Included nine non-Jews. It was headed by Mrs. Inez Weissman of Albertson, Long Island, N.Y.

Rosenthal said he expected a similar Senate bill, cosponsored by Henry M. Jackson (D., Wash.) and William E. Brock III (R., Tenn.), would be voted on this week. That bill has 55 Senate supporters to date.

Katya Palatnik, the 23-year-old sister of Soviet Jewish political prisoner Raiza Palatnik, said at a press conference that 36 Jews would go on a hunger strike in Moscow when President Nixon arrives there May 22. She said thousands of other Jews would be present in solidarity and faced possible arrest. Miss Palatnik, wearing a blue-and-while pants suit to symbolize her new Israeli citizenship, asked Nixon to make the mass demonstration and the hunger strike unnecessary by agreeing in advance to meet with Soviet Jewish leaders.