Russian Jew Writes Podgorny Renouncing Citizenship, Declaring Himself an Israeli

A Moscow Jew who was denied an exit visa to be reunited with members of his family in Israel, and who said he was threatened by the Soviet authorities when he sought the required document, has written a letter to President Nikolai V. Podgorny of the USSR renouncing his Soviet citizenship and proclaiming himself? “citizen of the Jewish State of Israel.” The text of the letter was published in Focus on Soviet Jewry, a bulletin on Soviet Jewish affairs edited by Joel Cang, former Warsaw correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. There was no explanation of how the text of the letter was received in London.

The writer of the letter is a Moscow Jew named D. S. Drabkin who gave his address as 32 Fadeyev Street. The letter is dated April 18, 1969. Mr. Drabkin wrote the President: “On the 7th of December. 1968, I applied for permission for myself, my wife and 12-year-old daughter to join my family in Israel. On the 10th of April, 1969, I received a post card asking me to telephone OVIR (a department of the secret police which screens people for visas and exit permits). When I telephoned, I was told that no permission was granted and when I expressed my disappointment, a female voice on the other side of the line said “there are too many of you Jews. We shall finish you off here.”

Mr. Drabkin went on to say that “this was probably the voice of Catherine Pavlova Archipova who usually answers such inquiries.” He then asked President Podgorny if this was an expression of Government policy and concluded his letter with the statement: “I am thus kept forcibly here and threatened with destruction of myself and my family. I can no longer consider myself, therefore, a citizen of the Soviet Union. I consider myself a citizen of the Jewish State of Israel.”