Speech #920206703

But then came the sixday war. With it came a revival of pride in being Jewish for many Russian Jews. With this revival of a sense of pride in identity came the drive by many to emigrate to Israeltheir state. their spiritual home. At first these requests were denied Then emigration was a mere trickle. Last year. under mounting pressure of world opinion in opposition to this Soviet policy. 13.000 Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union. The trickle has become a stream. It was against this background that House Concurrent Resolution 471 took shape. to state the sense of Congress that the President of the United States should take steps to call upon the Soviet government to permit free expression of ideas and the free exercise of religion by all its citizens in accordance with Soviet lawin short. end this drive toward "spiritual genocide" of the Jewish minority. Passage of this concurrent resolution will also put the United States on record as demanding that the Soviet Government permit its citizens the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union to countries of their choice as affirmed by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. to which the Soviet Union is a signatory. It also calls upon the State Department to raise in the General Assembly of the United Nations the question of the Soviet Unions disregard of the Declaration of Human Rights. House Concurrent Resolution 471 was conceived and introduced prior to the Presidents announcement of his trip to Russia this May.