Jewish sources in the Soviet Union reported today the first protest to Soviet authorities ever made by Jews in the Trans-Carpathia region of the Ukraine, a territory ceded to the Soviet Union after World War II. According to the sources, 20 Jews of the region have written to President Nikolai Podgorny and Premier Aleksei Kosygin protesting against delays in processing their applications for exit visas to go to Israel.
They wrote, “The Department of the Interior of the Trans-Carpathian region of Uzhgorod as well as other authorities of the Soviet Ukrainian Republic had our applications for exit visas for a long time. For decades and centuries, we Jews were brought up in the spirit of our religion and tradition. We were taught our language, history, the Bible and the Talmud in Jewish schools. We should have disappeared as Jews without our faith and without our language. This is why we want to go to the land of our forefathers.”
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