Outlook for Soviet Jews Worsens, As Emigration Dips

Soviet Jewish emigration in January dropped almost 20 percent from the December figures, and Soviet Jewry officials are worried that the decline and other indicators augur more difficult times for refuseniks.

According to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, 722 Jews left the Soviet Union in January, compared to 899 Jews who emigrated in December. The January figures indicate the third consecutive monthly drop in emigration since November.

“It is obvious that there has been a post-summit tightening of emigration restrictions,” the NCSJ said in a statement on the decline. “We are especially concerned that those lacking first-degree relatives in Israel are now increasingly being refused permission to emigrate. We reiterate our demand that the Soviet Union amend its emigration policy if it is to be counted among the civilized nations of the world.”

Last week, the NCSJ released a letter to its chairman, Morris Abram, from President Reagan, in which the president pledged to “continue to press the human rights question,” acknowledging that “there has not yet been a meeting of minds on the crucial issue of human rights.”

Jerry Strober, NCSJ spokesman, said, “We have been witnessing since January, in some specific instances, that Soviet OVIR emigration authorities in Moscow and Leningrad have been applying the first-degree relative clause, which, if it continues, indicates that Jewish emigration will be effectively shut down. We have indications that the Soviets are going to apply the rules.”

Several prominent, long-term Moscow refuseniks have written to government leaders in the West to express their concern that human rights “may have been bargained away for the major issues of disarmament and East-West trade” in the wake of the Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev summit meeting in early December.

Yuli Kosharovsky, now the longest-waiting refusenik in the Soviet Union, wrote that, based on reports from refusenik-activists in several Soviet cities, “authorities have deliberately decided to turn the screw” in insisting on adherence to the first-degree relative clause.

Moreover, some prominent refuseniks who had been told they would be receiving visas, or at least reconsideration of their cases, find their hopes have been dashed.

‘CATCH 22’ FOR ABRAMOVICH

The family of prominent refusenik Pavel Abramovich, waiting to emigrate for 16 years, now claims to find itself in a “Catch 22” situation. On the eve of the summit conference, while Abramovich’s son, Felix, spoke on Capitol Hill and addressed the Freedom Sunday rally, Soviet emigration authorities told Pavel and Marta Abramovich that they would be permitted to join their son in Israel.

However, in early January, when Pavel Abramovich went to OVIR to confirm the exit visas for the couple and his mother, he was told that no visas had been granted them because his mother’s documents were “missing.” Pavel Abramovich claims his mother’s papers have been regularly submitted along with those of the rest of the family.

Pavel Abramovich’s brother, Grigory, a six-year refusenik, was told that his invitation from Israel was no longer valid and he would have to reapply with an invitation from his brother, who is not yet in Israel to issue one. Pavel Abramovich has reportedly held two protest demonstrations since then.

In addition, Vladimir (Ze’ev) Dashevsky, a religious activist refusenik who also was told to reapply while his daughter was speaking in Washington during the time of the summit, has been again refused permission to emigrate, because his wife’s parents have refused to sign the waiver of obligation.