The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia said today that it has sent more than 700 telegrams to Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev urging the USSR to stop “intimidating its Jewish citizens” and to remove “the barriers to emigration.” The JCRC said it sent an additional 600 telegrams to President Nixon calling on him to deny trade concessions to the Soviet Union or any nation “whose borders are closed to those who yearn to leave.”
In another area of concern, the JCRC reported yesterday that two former governors of Pennsylvania have joined in efforts to save the remaining Jews of Iraq by asking the Iraqi government to allow them to make a first-hand investigation of the condition of Jews in that country.
W. Thatcher Longworth, chairman of the Philadelphia Committee of Concern for Jews in Syria and Iraq, released the text of a letter sent by former governors George M. Leader and Raymond P. Shafer to the President of Iraq.
The letter referred to the recent murder by Iraqi secret police of five members of the Kashkosh family, a prominent Jewish family of Baghdad, and the disappearance of 16 other Iraqi Jews.
“We request permission of the Iraqi government for us to investigate the situation of Iraqi Jews. We want to determine for ourselves the measures taken to insure their safety and security and the free exercise of their right to emigrate,” the letter said.
The two ex-governors asked President Hassan al-Bakr of Iraq to clarify or confirm the reported murders and kidnappings of Jews.
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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.
