Jews in the city of Kiev will wear “yellow stars” if they are not permitted to emigrate because they cannot pay the increased exit fees for educated Jews which range up to nearly $25,000, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry said it had been told by a Kiev Jew.
In a telephone conversation with a Kiev Soviet Jewish activist leader who preferred to remain unidentified, the SSSJ was told that Kiev Jews had learned that if a person leaves school before graduation because he wished to emigrate, he will be required to pay the heavy exit fee on a “percentage basis.”
“They (the government) have no right to take our money since the people are always told that education is free of charge,” she said. “If they want to take money they should request a sum which is in the realm of possibility.”
Stating that “none of us can now leave. None of us have this type of money,” she added, “the situation of the Jews in Kiev now is like a pot boiling with the top closed.”
Asked by Glenn Richter, national coordinator of SSSJ, “What will you do if you cannot pay the required exit fee?” she replied, “We shall wear yellow stars if they will not let us go if we do not pay.”
A demand that the Israel Olympic Team refrain from taking part in the concluding Olympic ceremonies because that day falls on Rosh Hashana, was sent to Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon by the National Religious Party, Agudat Israel and Poalei Agudat Israel, the three Orthodox parties in the Knesset.
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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.
