The National Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, representing 13 chapters across the country, expressed today its “dismay” over Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s not having endorsed the Senate bill for 30,000 emergency visas for Soviet Jews, as 34 of his colleagues already have. Harold B. Light, vice chairman of the National Union and chairman of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry, advised the Massachusetts Democrat in a telegram: “General statements of sympathy for Soviet Jews or resolutions to United Nations are no longer sufficient. Legislative action by United States government opening the gates to Soviet Jews is necessary. Please help.” Last Thursday, following a sit-in at his Washington offices by members of the Jewish Defense League, Kennedy promised to act for the release of five Jews facing trial in Sverdlovsk on charges of “anti-Soviet activity.” Light also reported that in a private conversation Monday with Bayard Rustin, the black civil rights leader told him: “I think that the Soviet Union has behaved badly toward its Jews, but I think we, the United States, have behaved equally badly. I want to know why President Nixon has not gone to the United Nations, why he has not himself denounced what is happening, why he has not called on other nations to do so. The one thing he ought to do is to say: ‘If there are Jews who want to come to America, let them come. I will see to it that they are permitted in.'”
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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.
