One of Russia’s two chief rabbis backed his country’s graduation from the Jackson-Vanik amendment. “Jews in Russia enjoy real equal rights,” Rabbi Berel Lazar said at a meeting Wednesday in Moscow with U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.). They issued a joint statement that called the amendment “a downright anachronism.” The amendment, a provision of the Trade Act of 1974, prohibited the United States from maintaining normalized trade relations with certain countries with non-market economies that restrict emigration. The amendment was adopted in part as a response to Soviet restrictions on Jewish emigration.Regarding the current situation of Russian Jews, Lantos, a Holocaust survivor and chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Relations committee, said: “I would never believe it was possible if I did not see it with my own eyes. I devoted many years to the struggle for the rights of Soviet Jews. Now I can see that you have this problem solved.”
Passover may be over, but your chance to support independent Jewish journalism isn't. Help JTA keep reporting the stories that define our era.
