Jewish Leaders to Shultz: Tell Soviets ‘glasnost’ a Sham for Jews

Jewish leaders Thursday urged Secretary of State George Shultz to tell his Soviet counterpart that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of “glasnost,” or openness, is not being applied to the Jews of the USSR.

“Glasnost, as far as the Jewish population is concerned, doesn’t exist at the best and is a fraud at the worst,” Morris Abram, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ), told reporters after the meeting with Shultz at the State Department. He said the situation for Jews under Gorbachev is more “oppressive” than under previous regimes.

Shultz asked for the meeting to receive a report from the NCSJ on the situation of Soviet Jewry during the first six months of the year, according to Abram. The Secretary said that a chart prepared by the NCSJ for the U.S.-Soviet summit in Finland last year was useful in illustrating the situation of Soviet Jews, and he wanted another one for his upcoming meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. No date has been announced for the meeting.

Abram, who is also chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said that Shultz was urged to tell Shevardnadze that glasnost was “deceiving nobody” and that until Soviet “conduct with respect to the Jewish population is redressed and until Jews are permitted to leave in accordance with the Helsinki Accords, there will not be that degree of credibility and trust” needed to improve relations between the two superpowers.

Shultz was praised by those attending the meeting for his continuing support for the struggle of Soviet Jewry.

U.S. REITERATES POLICY

Earlier in the day, State Department spokesman Charles Redman reiterated the U.S. policy that “all those who wish to leave the Soviet Union or emigrate abroad should be able to do so.” He also said that Jews and others “should be free to practice their religion.”

Abram noted he had met British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London earlier in the week and she, too, said that Britain is telling the Soviets that “if they can’t be trusted on human rights, they can’t be trusted on other issues.”

The situation has reached a “crucial stage because Mr. Gorbachev is hard at work trying to deceive the American people and also the Jewish people,” Abram said.

He conceded that emigration figures have risen for the first six months of 1987, with 3,092 Jews being allowed to leave as compared to only 790 for all of 1986. But this is “insignificant” when compared to the some 51,000 allowed to emigrate in 1979, Abram stressed.

He called the release of a few well-known figures a “public relations exercise” while noting that emigration has been made harder for some long-term refuseniks on security grounds. He said that it “is an absurdity and a fraud” that refuseniks such as Vladimir Slepak, who has not been allowed to work for 17 years, or Ida Nudel, who has been denied work for 16 years, could not emigrate because they were privy to secrets. Abram said that more important than the monthly emigration figures is the new policy of refusing new applications for emigration. He said the Soviets may be planning to allow most refuseniks to leave and then cut off all emigration.

SEEKS CONTINUED TALKS

Abram, who visited the Soviet Union in March with Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, said he would like to go back and “continue the conversations” they had with Soviet officials. He said at the time no agreements were made, but that the Soviets sought to leave “impressions” on improving conditions for Soviet Jews as well as emigration.

At the time, Abram and Bronfman said they were given assurances that the 11,000 long-term refuseniks would be allowed to emigrate within a year; that emigres would be allowed to go to Israel through Rumania, rather than Vienna; and that conditions would be improved for the practice of Judaism within the USSR. “The impressions they sought to leave with us have not proven to be substantial,” he said.

Also attending the meeting with Shultz were: Shoshana Cardin, president of the Council of Jewish Federations; Theodore Ellenoff, president of the American Jewish Committee; Jerry Goodman, NCSJ executive director; Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the President’s Conference; Mark Levin, NCSJ Washington representative; Michael Pelavin, chairman of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council; Seymour Reich, president of B’nai B’rith International; Constance Smukler, vice chairperson of NCSJ; and Sandra Weiner, chairperson of the NCSJ’s National Advisory Council.