The number of Jews emigrating from the Soviet Union continued to soar to new heights during the month of July, with a record 15,553 leaving the country.
The rate was a significant increase over June, when 11,197 Jews emigrated.
Of the July number, 15,283 went to Israel and 270 to the United States, according to both the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.
The total number of Soviet Jewish emigrants during the year 1990 has reached 65,412, the National Conference reported.
The monthly number of emigrating Soviet Jews has more than tripled since January, when just 4,713 Soviet Jews left.
Shoshana Cardin, NCSJ chairwoman, said that her organization was “gratified that the Soviet Union is living up to its commitment to allow Jews to emigrate.”
But she added that they were still “deeply concerned over the fate of remaining refuseniks” and “troubled by continuing manifestations of popular anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.”
At the annual retreat of the United Jewish Appeal young women’s leadership cabinet in Houston, Texas, this past weekend, Cardin told the 200 delegates attending that the situation confronting Soviet Jews calls for a rescue mission of unprecedented magnitude.
“We are involved in the greatest act of humanity the world has ever seen — an act that will take years. Few in the world have ever had such an opportunity,” she said.
Cardin said that the problem today with glasnost and perestroika is that “when there is major change, someone suffers, someone loses and the conservatives around Gorbachev stand to lose. In their search for weapons against him, these Soviet conservatives have found the Jews as an arrow.”
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