The Soviet Union was reported here today to have relaxed somewhat its policies on banning emigration from the USSR, having issued exit visas to 50 Jews going to the United States alone this year, it was reported here this weekend.
According to a Moscow dispatch to the New York Herald Tribune, 30 Soviet Jews were given permission thus far in 1965 to visit the United States, while 20 other Jews from the USSR were allowed this year to leave their Russian homes for permanent residence in this country. Nearly all of the 20, it was indicated, are aged persons joining relatives in the U.S. (A very small number of aged Soviet Jews were also permitted to emigrate to Israel to join their families there.)
Other dispatches received here this weekend from Moscow reported an article in Izvestia, official daily organ of the Soviet Government, claiming that anti-Semitism is “rampant” in the United States. Using outdated information which had been published by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and reporting isolated anti-Semitic incidents of several years ago as if they had all just occurred, the Izvestia article attempted to bolster its contentions in such a way as to “prove” that swastikas are being painted now on many American synagogues and that social discrimination against Jews in the U.S.A. is widespread currently.
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