Speech #940096573

Speaker. on Monday. June 23. 1975. this House passed H.R. 7500. the State Department authorization bill. In the bill was a provision for $20 million for assistance of refugees from the Soviet Union. 80 percent of this money is earmarked for the resettlement of Soviet Jews in the State of Israel. For the third year in a row. we have had to provide funds for this program over the lack of interest. and indeed. the opposition of the administration. For an administration that has professed a deep interest and concern for refugees. this is a sorry record. What is more regrettable than the indifference from the executive branch. is the fact that we are authorizing only onehalf of the amount available in fiscal year 1975. because the emigration from the Soviet Union has once again been slowed to a trickle. In spite of past promises and "tacit agreements" few Jews are being allowed to leave the Soviet Union. and those expressing a desire to do so are being subjected to a stepped up campaign of repression. Mr. Speaker. the question of Jewish emigration from the U.S.S.R. to Israel is an extremely important one for many reasons. It is obviously extremely important for personal reasons for each and everyone who is leaving: It is often the most important event in their lives. In each case an exit visa is arbitrarily refused. the persecutions. repressions. provocations. trials. and incarcerations are great misfortunes in human terms. However. there is a larger dimension to this issue. and that is the right of the free movement of peoples and the right of choice of the country of residence. the latter having been incorporated as the 13th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is my feeling that we. as Members of the Congress of the United States have a moral obligation to do all that we can to assist those wishing to emigrate to the country of their ethnic and religious heritage--especially when that heritage has resulted in their suffering from the effects of discrimination in the country of their birth. I am proud to be part of the effort mounted by the Long Island Committee for Soviet Jewry by participating in the congressional adoptaprisonerofconscience program. I can only hope that there will be some kind of positive impact from the letters that I have been sending to Chairman Brezhnev and Ambassador Dobrynin on behalf of Mr. Anatoly Altman. a young wood engraver whose main crimes consisted of applying for a visa to emigrate to Israel and the reproduction of materials of Jewish content for distribution to fellow Jews. Mr. Speaker. on June 21. the newspaper. the Jewish Week and the American Examiner.