Jewish sources in the Soviet Union reported today that during March 1973 the ovir (visa bureau) in Moscow exempted 46 graduates from paying the education tax on their exit visas. One graduate was exempted in Novosibirsk, and two each were exempted in Kiev, Kishinev, Riga and Smolensk.
The sources said that apart from these two, no graduates left Kiev during March. A number of Jews without university education were given exit visas but many more were refused. The refusals in Kiev are now differently worded. Applicants are told “come back after two or three years,” the sources reported The family of Jacob Blank on the collective farm of Zaporozhye, near Kiev, was told, “The collective farm is against your leaving them.”
A group of Kiev Jews has written to the head of the Rothschild family in France asking him to intervene on their behalf so that they could obtain exit visas for Israel.
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.
