The International Council of Jewish Women, which has consultative status before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, appealed to the Commission today to adopt during the Commission’s current session here a long-pending proposal calling on all governments to permit to every person the right to leave his country or return thereto. The petition did not name the Soviet Union but was obviously aimed as a bid to Soviet Russia to permit emigration of Jews for reuniting with their families, especially in Israel.
The appeal was voiced on behalf of the global Jewish women’s organization by Mrs. Miriam Warburg. She noted that the subject, on the agenda of the Commission now, had been approved in 1963 by the body’s Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, but has never been acted upon “due to lack of time.”
The Council’s “foremost concern,” she told the Commission, “lies in the hardships caused by the fact that some members of a family have been permitted to leave their countries of origin, whilst others are prevented from joining them because they have been denied the right of exit. During the past few years, numerous cases have been brought to our attention in which the reunion of families has been rendered impossible in spite of strenuous efforts.” She demanded that action be taken now, before the current session is adjourned at the end of March.
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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.
