The Soviet Union has again defended its education tax on Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate, this time in a press release from the Soviet Mission to the United Nations. The statement charged that “propaganda agencies in Israel, Zionist and pro-Zionist organizations in some western countries, as well as certain organs of the press, have once again waged a slanderous anti-Soviet campaign, using the pretext of the so-called ‘Jewish question.'” The statement added, that “strange as it may appear, the propaganda of this kind is also quite often dispensed through the channels” of the UN.
The statement again asserted previous Soviet claims that “in 1972, exit visas were granted to 99.5 percent of all those who applied for permission to leave for Israel” and that limitations on exit visas applied only to “persons with certain types of military training or to those who, by the nature of their activity, are involved in the work touching upon the national interests of the Soviet Union.”
The statement also reiterated the customary Soviet charge that “the hostile, slanderous and provocative” campaign against the USSR was aimed “at distracting world public opinion from Israel’s continued aggression against Arab states, from the crimes perpetrated by them in the occupied territories and from the upsurge of racism and anti-Semitism in a number of capitalist countries.” Though the release was dated Feb. 22, it made no reference to Israel’s air and sea raid against terrorist bases in northern Lebanon on Feb. 20 or the downing of the Libyan airliner the next day.
During 1972, “as in the previous years, the competent Soviet authorities gave careful consideration to all applications by persons of Jewish nationality who, for various reasons–dissociated family, religious attitude, impact of Zionist propaganda–express a wish to leave the Soviet Union for Israel and, as a rule, comply with such requests,” the statement declared. It added that since “all types of higher education in the USSR are provided free of charge,” reimbursement “is not unusual and is applied in many countries.”
The statement again cited exceptions to and reductions in the education tax requirement, based on old age, length of years of work in the Soviet Union and for persons going abroad because of marriage. It added “no compensation for education is levied in cases of Soviet citizens leaving for Socialist countries.”
The statement also commented on “certain persons of Jewish nationality imprisoned in the Soviet Union that are being cited by Zionist propagandists and those in their service.” Such persons, the statement said, had been condemned by Soviet courts for “criminal offenses” and “naturally, their nationality or their desire to leave for Israel are in no way connected with these judicial decisions.”
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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.
