Five leading Jewish activists in the Soviet Union have been given permission to leave, it was learned here today. According to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, visas have been granted to Boris Einbinder and Vladimir Roginsky, of Moscow, and to Igor Goldfarb, of Kiev. The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported that visas were also promised to Vladimir Mash, a well-known economist and Boris Orlov, a historian, both of Moscow.
Meanwhile, more than 80 other Soviet Jews have protested to the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee over the denial of visas to them and others, it was reported from Moscow.
The Central Committee was challenged to state why it has not to date informed more than 80 visa applicants of the fate of their applications. The petition, made available today to Western newsmen, said the applicants did not belong to “any of the categories” named by Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev during his visit to the U.S. last June.
They said that previous appeals to the Central Committee were never acknowledged and that they had never received any written acknowledgement of their visa applications. “We are without rights before the Soviet authorities. We cannot even file a complaint when permission to leave is refused to us, as refusals are only given verbally,” the appeal said. “We know that the instructions on which our fate depends come from the Central Committee–that is from whom the KGB (secret police) and MVD (Interior Ministry) take their orders.”
Signatories of the petition included the eminent scientist Prof. Benjamin Levich, computer specialist Aleksander Lermer, and-Vladimir Slepak.
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.
