The Knesset today called on the parliaments of the world to use their influence to obtain freedom for Soviet Jews who want to emigrate to Israel. The appeal was contained in a resolution adopted at a special session of the Knesset devoted to the condition of Jews in the Soviet Union. It was the first special session held by the newly convened seventh Knesset.
The impassioned rhetoric that resounded through the chamber was capped by Premier Golda Meir who pledged that the Israel Government and people would do everything in their power to enable Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. She described a letter received from the heads of 18 Jewish families in the Soviet Georgian Republic appealing for aid to emigrate to Israel as “a manifest indication of the way Jews in the Soviet Union feel” and of “historic significance.” The letter has been relayed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Mrs. Meir said the appeal of the Georgian Jews was grounded on many international conventions and treaties that have been signed by the Soviet Government. She vowed that today’s Knesset discussion would not be the end of the struggle.” The Knesset resolved the same thing and crushed an opposing resolution introduced by the pro Moscow New Communist Party.
After the session, Mrs. Meir received a delegation of immigrants from the Georgian Republic, some of them relatives of the families who signed the appeal. They said, that they continued to receive letters from their kin who, said they were still “sitting on their luggage” in the hope of obtaining exit permits.
Israeli newspapers today published what was purported to be an “open letter” from a Jewish girl in Moscow to Premier Alexei Kosygin demanding permission to emigrate to Israel. There was no indication of how the letter reached the papers. But they identified the writer as Tina Brodetzkaya, published a photograph showing a girl in her early 20s and gave her home address. The letter said that the writer has wanted to come to Israel from her earliest student days.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
