Israel Submits to UN Plea from Soviet Jewish Family for Aid in Emigrating

Ambassador Yosef Tekoah of Israel delivered today to Secretary-General U Thant a letter received by Prime Minister Golda Meir from a Moscow Jewish family appealing for her assistance in securing permission to leave the Soviet Union to be reunited with kin in Israel.

Mr. Tekoah, who returned from Israel Sunday night, asked the Secretary-General to have the Moscow letter distributed as an official document of the General Assembly. In his covering letter Mr. Tekoah drew attention to his previous communication of Nov. 10,1969 dealing with the refusal of the Soviet authorities to grant exit permits to permit the reunification of families in Israel.

The letter transmitted to Mr. Thant today in photostat form was originally addressed to Mrs. Meir on Dec. 9,1969 and was signed by Yosif and Sofia Kazakov, who gave a Moscow street address. They appealed to Mrs. Meir for help in leaving the Soviet Union to rejoin their son Yakov Kazakov who had settled in Israel. They related that they had received the required affidavit from their son and had filed it with the necessary documents and application for an exit permit. They were notified by the OVIR, a section of the police, that their application had been denied.

The Kazakovs said they had then addressed an appeal to the heads of the Soviet regime and to the legal authorities but had again been informed by OVIR that their application had been rejected.

The Kazakovs told Mrs. Meir that the rejection of the permit was a violation of their human rights as guaranteed by the United Nations Convention to which the Soviet Union was a signatory. They gave her full permission to broadcast or otherwise publicize their letter in the hope that an aroused world opinion would compel the Soviet authorities to permit them to proceed to Israel, which they said, they considered their homeland.