The Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry has challenged the Soviet Union to allow 16-year-old Marina Tiemkin to speak to her father “on neutral ground,” to test the truthfulness of their claim that she does not want to be reunited with him.
Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference executive director, noted that the Soviet, Mission to the UN issued a statement Tuesday in which it said that Marina does not wish to join her father, Dr. Alexander Tiemkin, in Israel. The Soviet statement claimed that Marina “is preparing for university studies and has no intention to go to Israel.”
Hoenlein said the Conference has wired the Soviet Mission to demand that Marina, who has not seen her father for three years, be granted the right to speak with her father without duress from a neutral place, such as the U.S. Embassy or an American news agency.
“We are convinced that if allowed to speak with Dr. Tiemkin, Marina will reiterate her long-held desire to leave the USSR, a desire which was reaffirmed to us by people who met and spoke with her last August, and to join him in Israel.”
Hoenlein added: “This claim that Marina wishes to remain in the USSR is yet another example of the Soviets’ propaganda campaign that seeks to at once discredit the Soviet Jewry movement, and to convince the free world that there is no such thing as a Jewish emigration problem.”
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