A Kharkov Jew who has been denied an exit visa on grounds that he and his wife are “security risks,” has warned Jewish organizations in the U.S., Britain and France not to be satisfied with their achievements on behalf of Soviet Jewry. Mikhail Kerbel, whose “open letter” was just received here, said, “We are a visible example of the enormous difference between what the Russians really do and what they say to the world public.”
Kerbel and his wife, Adella, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, have been trying to leave the Soviet Union for two-and-a-half years and have been consistently denied exit visas. “Our family has been appealing to all the Soviet bodies in charge of emigration to Israel, but our requests have gotten nowhere,” he wrote.
‘On the contrary, they are being used by the authorities as an excuse to subject our family to even more indignities. I have been deprived of the right of free movement, my correspondence is opened and not delivered to me, and our letters to our relatives and friends abroad do not reach their destinations,” Kerbel said. “We have been deprived of all contact with the outside world.”
His letter concluded, “Having exhausted all the possible means in our struggle for our right to emigrate and finding ourselves in the position of being forcibly kept here, we must urge you not to be satisfied with your achievements so far, but to continue giving support to our struggle.”
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