(In New York, Jewish sources sent to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency an English translation of an anonymous letter received by a Jewish family in Riga. It reads: “Vile Kike, If you, scum, will still write letters to this rotten Israel, we shall drown you in feces. Leningrad is not enough for you scum? There will be more III And if there won’t, we shall deal with you ourselves.”) “We have warned many times since January.” Yaroslavsky stated, “that the unprecedented emigration would not continue forever. We believe that the Soviets are testing world opinion at this time. They want to see whether World Jewry will react. This will determine how long the “faucet’ remains dry.” The student movement and the Southern California Council for Jews has called on the Southern California Jewish community to come out in strong support of the Soviet Jewry Relief Bill of 1971 which would permit 30,000 Soviet Jews and their families to come to the United States on special visas if the opportunity were offered them. “If there was any time in the last four years that required the passage of this important bill,” said Yaroslavsky, “now is the time. We must put all the pressure we can muster on the Soviet Union. We are being tested, and we cannot afford to lose a chance and fail the test.” The two organizations urged people to write to their Congressmen urging support for the bill, and to the Soviet Embassy to let the Jews go.
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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.