Two U.S. Jewish Leaders Who Met with Soviet Leaders in Moscow Disclose the Nature of the Soviet Assu

Two Jewish leaders who met with Soviet officials in Moscow last week said here Wednesday that they were assured that all refuseniks and their families will be allowed to emigrate to Israel within a one year period and that all Soviet Jews with exit visas for Israel will travel there via Rumania on flights to be established.

Those were two of the nine points listed by Morris Abram, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ), and Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, who concluded their talks in Moscow last Friday.

They said, at a meeting convened by the NCSJ here, attended by 150 Jewish communal leaders, that while there appeared to be a changing atmosphere in the Soviet Union, genuine progress would be measured in terms of Soviet performance on the range of issues discussed in Moscow.

With respect to refuseniks, the only limitation they said would be for legitimate national security cases. A procedure will be established, however, to review previous visa denials on national security grounds and this procedure may involve officials on a level as high as the Supreme Soviet, Abram and Bronfman said in a statement released at the meeting.

SEVEN MORE POINTS

The remaining seven points on which they said they were reassured are:

First-degree relatives may emigrate for family reunification within an established time frame. There may be flexibility within the framework of the current narrow interpretation of “first-degree relative.”

Cases of those refuseniks recently placed in a “never allowed to emigrate” category will be reviewed.

All Jewish religious books may be imported into the USSR, and a recommended list of books will be submitted.

Synagogues will be opened at all sites where there is a demonstrated need.

Soviet Jews will be allowed greater access to rabbinical training. Some may even be allowed to study in the United States.

The teaching of Hebrew in school or synagogue settings will be considered together with similar restrictions applied to other religious groups.

A kosher restaurant will be opened in Moscow, and liberal provisions will be made for ritual slaughter, Abram and Bronfman said they would consult further with the Jewish community and with members of Congress and government leaders and would be prepared to suggest incremental responses based on measured progress on these points. Under consideration would be support for a change in the Stevenson Amendment as well as annual waivers of the trade restrictions in the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, based on very substantial and sustained emigration. They stressed that only annual waivers will be considered until the problem of Soviet Jewish emigration has been completely resolved.