Soviet Jew Appeals to the West As His Wife is Near Death

The Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry today released an appeal it received from the parents of Odessa activist Shmuel Bronfman in which they “begged for immediate intervention on behalf of their son and daughter-in-law.” Bronfman’s wife, Raya, the appeal said, “is dying of leukemia. In grave condition, she was taken to the Slobodka regional hospital.” The Bronfmans were recently refused a visa to Israel on the grounds that “the Soviet Union has the capability of taking care of life as well as death,” the Conference reported. Shmuel Bronfman urgently called on the West to “help save the life of my wife.”