An official of the World Jewish Congress has urged Jews and non-Jews to appeal to the leaders of the Soviet Union during the celebration next month of the Bolshevik Revolution to grant amnesty to Jews who have been imprisoned for seeking to emigrate to Israel. Rabbi Joseph Karasick, chairman of the WJC-American Section, noted that for many years now the Soviet Union has marked the anniversary of the 1917 revolution with the granting of amnesty to prisoners.
He recommended that telegrams be addressed to Leonid I. Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR; Aleksei N. Kosygin, chairman of the Council of Ministers; and Nikolai V. Podgorny, chairman of the Supreme Soviet. Copies of such telegrams, he said, should be mailed to the Soviet Embassy in Washington.
Rabbi Karasick expressed the hope that meetings would be called in communities across the US appealing for amnesty for our imprisoned brothers and sisters in Soviet Russia and for their right to leave for Israel immediately after their release. Any resolutions adopted at such community meetings, Rabbi Karasick continued, should request the abolition of the “diploma tax” and appeal for freedom for Jews who wished to remain in the Soviet Union to enjoy the same rights granted to other minorities.
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