Special to the JTA Setting the Record Straight on the Case of Jessica Katz

Jessica Katz, the one-year-old daughter of Boris and Natasha Katz of Moscow, arrived earlier this month with her parents and 10-day-old sister Gobrielle at Logan international Airport. Jessica, who had been reported to be suffering from a digestive ailment, appeared healthy.

The New York Times launched a campaign in a news article and a subsequent editorial to the effect that they and the American public had been token in by an “erroneous story,” as it was termed in The Time Dec. 6 editorial, by “Jewish organizations that seek to dramatize the plight of Soviet Jews.”

The Action for Soviet Jewry and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, which were the prime Soviet Jewry groups to publicize Jessica’s plight, have sought to set the record straight. Bailey Barron and Judy Patkin, co-chairwomen of Action, and Robert G. Gordon, president of the Union, released the following statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on the Jessica Katz case:

ISSUES BENEATH THE SURFACE

A number of issues lie buried beneath the surface of the accusations emanating from The New York Times insisting that Jewish organizations exaggerated publicity to free Jessica Katz and call attention to the situation of Soviet Jews.

We in Action for Soviet Jewry, who were the prime initiators and coordinators of the Jessica Katz saga, knew that we had not misrepresented Jessica’s condition and a review of all the literature available to us revealed no substantial misrepresentation in publicity developed by other Jewish organizations or by political figures with whom we had contact.

Nevertheless, there is no question that many persons waiting at Boston’s Logan Airport expected to see a critically ill baby instead of an apparently healthy, smiling child. The question as to whether the public had been duped was quickly raised by (only) The New York Times reporter.

The heart of the answer lies in the criticality of Jessica’s illness. Jessica experienced no weight gain between early December 1977 and March 30, 1978. She received multiple blood and plasma transfusions and experienced acute and chronic diarrhea. It was only when American tourists brought predigested formula, Pregestimil, to Jessica at the suggestion of Dr. Richard Feinbloom of Boston that the baby (who was then in the hospital) responded and immediately started to gain weight. Thereafter, despite two relapses in May and June, Jessica grew and developed in an apparently satisfactory manner.

CRITICALITY OF JESSICA’S CONDITION

Why then should Jessica’s health have been described as critical when she seemed to be progressing so well? The criticality of Jessica’s situation hopefully did not lie in her condition after March 30, although Dr. Feinbloom contends that Jessica may indeed have remained in a critical health condition, but in the possibility that her life-line, the tourists bringing in Pregestimil, might break down.

We and Dr. Feinbloom had tried to find other methods of insuring the continuing and proper care of Jessica. Dr. Feinbloom on February 27 and on March 1, tried to make contact by mail###ram and mail with the Hon, Boris Vasil’evich Petrovskii, Minister of Health of the USSR. The American political figures were sometimes acknowledged with the claim that Jessica was “receiving medical care from the best specialists,” but we knew that the “best specialists” had been unsuccessful for four months in treating Jessica.

In early summer two Pregestimil cases were shipped by doctors from Los Angeles to the Soviet Union. One case arrived, the other was apparently confiscated. It appeared that the only potentially dependable life-line was the tourists, taking four to 18 cans at a time, hoping to get through Soviet customs without questioning and confiscation.

It is not always easy to find tourists willing to take the risk of being confronted with aiding a maligned and outcast minority (i.e., the refusniks) in the Soviet Union. The criticality lay in the fact that we were not sure from month to month whether we could keep Jessica’s supply of Pregestimil coming.

If the cry in this country had been concentrated on providing formula, we were afraid that this life-line (which could be cut easily by an “uncomprehanding” Soviet customs official) would disappear. Also Dr. Feinbloom repeatedly stressed that Jessica needed a full diagnosis to insure that her treatment was indeed proper. We reported that Jessica was apparently doing well under the formula, but we also pointed out that she had never been diagnosed and that Soviet medicine was apparently unable to treat her.

ILLNESS EMBARRASSED SOVIETS

Jessica’s illness embarrassed the Soviets and highlighted the fact that the Russians were preventing the emigration of one who held no “state secrets” and who had a perfectly legitimate reason to want to leave the country. The arbitrariness of Soviet visa refusals was successfully exposed. The sheer human drama of a sick infant apparently kept alive by humanitarians captured the imagination of the media and also of the country.

Although we were in the center of the activities dealing with Jessica, we received relatively few phone calls from the media, and we were most careful to keep accurate those reports with which we were involved. However, we could not help but notice that media reports were being published and aired which were exaggerating the extent of Jessica’s illness even after it had stabilized. We tried in several instances to correct erroneous reports after they had been made public.

Unfortunately, The New York Times failed to document its impressions of the health of Jessica Katz and did not contact Action for Soviet Jewry, Dr. Feinbloom, or its own Moscow correspondent before publishing three news articles and a scothing editorial in rapid succession. The Times has since published (12/12) an article which exonerates Action for Soviet Jewry and Dr. Richard Feinbloom. However, the Soviet Jewry movement has been seriously maligned on the front page of The New York Times and picked up by the Soviet press.