An interfaith group of clerics and academicians demonstrated this morning in front of the Soviet Mission here in protest against the “education refund” being levied on Soviet Jewish academicians trying to emigrate to Israel. Police permitted only 12 protestors at a time to enter the cordoned-off block. Among the non-Jewish clergymen participating were Monsignor A.V. McLees of the National Conference for Interracial Justice, Father Joseph Eden and Sister Rose Thering of the Institute of Judeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University. The demonstration was sponsored by the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Members of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry set up what they described as a “slave trading block” across from the mission with placards reading “Free the New Slaves of the 20th Century,” “Stop Academic Blackmail” and other similar signs. The SSSJ demonstrators, many dressed in academic caps and gowns, called on the Soviet authorities to rescind the exit tax.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the Greater New York Conference, called the Soviet move “perhaps the most severe action since the Leningrad trials,” adding the imposed fees are “all too reminiscent of the days of World War II when Jews had to be ransomed.” Hoenlein declared that “The American people will not allow Soviet Jews to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.”
A spokesman for the Conference indicated that the Mayor, Governor, Borough Presidents, State Legislators and other officials, as well as prominent scientists and religious leaders, have been requested to protest the Soviet action. The spokesman also said that cables were sent to President Nixon asking for his intervention on the matter and to Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin demanding an immediate end to the new fees.
(The British Jewish Board of Deputies protested in London today the Soviet Union’s decision to impose an “education refund” levy on academicians applying for visas and urged the Soviet government to “reconsider this harsh imposition on man’s freedom.” The Board called the tax “a cheap and undignified method of suppression and harassment,” adding that the measure “will only serve to increase the determination and fervor” of Soviet Jews.)
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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.
