Jewish leaders urged Secretary of State George Shultz on Friday to enlist the support of U.S. allies in working for the repeal of the 1975 U.N. General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.
Preparing for the General Assembly session which begins Tuesday, Morris Abram, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and nine other Jewish leaders met with Shultz to raise their concerns prior to Shultz’s meetings with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze here on Sept. 22 and 23.
“We urged him (Shultz) to make demarches to the various capitals with which we are allied to get them to support the repeal,” said Abram, after the 30-minute meeting with Shultz at the State Department.
On the issue of Soviet Jewry, the group urged Shultz to focus on four individual cases: Boris Chernobilsky, Vladimir Kislik, Evgeny Lein and Roald Zelichonok.
There is also a fifth Soviet Jew, Dmitri Schiglik, who is a former prisoner but does not have a pending visa application, said Myrna Shinbaum, NCSJ national director, who was at the meeting.
Shultz should then ask for the release of those refuseniks waiting 12 years or more, and then the emigration of all others who wish to leave, said Abram, who also chairs the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
As of late Friday, Shinbaum had not received a visa for the Fourth General Chautauqua Conference on U.S.-Soviet Relations being held Sept. 19 to 23 in Tbilisi, in the Soviet Republic of Georgia.
At the State Department Friday, spokesman Charles Redman said, “we still do not have any reason as to why the delay.”
Shinbaum, representing Soviet Jewry professionals at the conference, is scheduled to speak at a plenary session discussing religion, along with Daniel Bratton, Chautauqua president.
Others waiting for a visa are a Radio Liberty correspondent and a human rights attorney.
Also attending the meeting were Shoshana Cardin, Council of Jewish Federations; Carmela Kalmanson, Hadassah; Morton Kornreich, United Jewish Appeal; Ivan Novick, Zionist Organization of America; Alan Pesky, Coalition to Free Soviet Jews; Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents; and Mark Levin and Rabbi David Hill of the NCSJ.
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