Gavriel Shapiro and Mark Nashpitz, two of the 13 Jews who are in hiding to avoid reporting for active duty in the Soviet Army Reserves and face seven years in prison in Siberia, have written to Israel’s Premier Golda Meir asking her aid to help them emigrate to Israel, it was reported today by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. The letter, which claimed the “Soviet authorities are doing their best to fulfill their diabolical plans to send us to the Army so that they can deprive us of the possibility of going to Israel,” was read to the SSSJ during a phone call placed to Mrs. Lydia Korn-feld, a Jewish activist in Moscow.
Shapiro and Nashpitz wrote that despite the need to hide from the “constant persecution and harassment” of the Soviet police, “once and for all we have made our choice. This is the choice between slavery and freedom, between living in a foreign land and living in our motherland.”
Now, at this dangerous time, the letter continued, “We are taking an oath which follows: “In spite of all kinds of persecution, in spite of all oppressions, we are and shall remain honest Jews, Jews devoted to Israel. There is no force which will make us stray from this path of leaving for our sacred motherland.” The letter concluded with a plea to Mrs. Meir to “please help us.”
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