Senators Support Free Emigration for Soviet Citizens, Including Jews

Two Midwestern Senators, Charles Percy (R. III.) and Walter Mondale (D. Minn.), expressed strong support today for free emigration of Soviet citizens including Jews, and deplored social conditions in the United States for elderly the handicapped and minorities, particularly Blacks.

Sen-Mondale told the approximately 500 delegates and guests at the 40th anniversary conference of the American Jewish Congress’ Women’s Division here that, “We must have official assurances from the Soviet government and from our own government” that the Soviet education tax on emigrants will not be imposed in the future. He referred to the Jackson Amendment’s provision that the President must certify suitable Soviet behavior on emigration if it is to obtain U.S. government trade benefits and credits.

Addressing the conference’s opening dinner last night, AJ Congress President Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, denounced any attempt to relieve pressure on the Soviet government on the emigration issue. “Soviet Jews are not for sale– not here nor anywhere,” he said. Rabbi Hertzberg later told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “no set of considerations, either of quiet diplomacy or a mixture of the issue of Russian Jews with the issue of the defense of Israel should deter anyone in America or anywhere in the world –Jews and non-Jews–from persistence in the battle for rescinding the emigration tax and other bars to emigration.”