Foreign Ministry officials so far have been unable to offer a hard assessment of what the apparent relaxations of the Soviet diploma tax bodes for the future. “All we know is that some scores of Jews have been exempted,” one official said today. “We do not know if this is a transient move or the beginning of something more permanent.”
Foreign Minister Abba Eban, who briefed the Cabinet on the subject today, is understood to have said much the same thing. Absorption Minister Nathan Peled said in an interview that he thought there was a “good chance” that the Russians meant to freeze but not to cancel the education tax on Soviet Jews. He added that only time would tell if the move to end the ransom tax was permanent.
“The question remains whether this represents a serious and permanent change or only a tactical move to mollify United States Senators who seek to deny trade concessions to Moscow unless the ransom tax is dropped,” Peled said. He observed that the lessons of the past dictated that pressure must be kept up on-the Soviet government even though there has been a relaxation in implementing the head tax.
Jewish Agency Executive chairman Louis Pincus, interviewed by Israel Radio in London said that “World Jewry will continue to fight for the right of all Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel.” Pincus was attending the Conference of Jewish Organizations (COJO). Moshe Rivlin, director general of the Jewish Agency who returned from the same London meeting Friday, said that there was a consensus that if the Soviet government changed its policy this was the result of the world-wide struggle waged on the issue.
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