A high-level conference will be held in Washington May 16 to try and find a solution to the continued high level of emigration to America of Soviet Jews leaving the USSR with Israeli visas, Jewish Agency Executive chairman Leon Dulzin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here today.
He said that the conference will be attended by two Israeli ministers to be named by Premier Menachem begin, Jewish Agency immigration department head Raphael Kotlowitz and himself, as well as the representatives of a number of American Jewish organizations. The conference will probably be chaired by Mox Fisher, a prominent American Jewish leader and chairman of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency.
Dulzin, who was here for a two day meeting of the presidium of the Brussels Conference on Soviet Jewry, said he hoped the forthcoming Washington parley will settle “the painful problem of the dropouts which endanger the entire future of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union.” According to figures presented to the presidium, the note of the dropouts reached over 62 percent last month.
The presidium called on the Soviet Union to apply its own former regulations and grant exit permits on the basis of affidavits supplied by relatives abroad. According to recent reports, the USSR now grants exit permits only on the basis of affidavits provided by close relatives, such as parents to children and vice verso. The participants were told that in the first three months of this year, the number of exit visas was reduced by one-third compared with the some period last year.
The presidium decided not to become involved in the Olympic Games issue. Dulzin explained: “Jews of various nationalities will go or stay away from the Games according to their country’s decision. As for Israel, the Israel Olympic Committee will have to decide. “He stressed, however, that those going to Moscow will be asked to act on behalf of the Prisoners of Conscience still detained in the Soviet Union and those whose exit visas have not yet been approved. The presidium was told that some 174,000 Soviet Jews submitted affidavits for exit visas last year.
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.
