Speaker. I am proud to Join my colleagues in the House of Representatives today in a congressional fast and prayer vigil for Soviet Jewry. I am also saddened and angry. because despite the courage and perseverance of Jews in the Soviet Union and the work of my colleagues in the Congress and of private citizens in this Nation. the Soviet Union continues to deny emigration rights as well as other basic human rights to Soviet Jews. The case of Aba and Ida Taratuta is representative of the situation of the 500.000 Soviet Jews who. like the Taratutas. have continually applied for and been denied exit visas and who have been harassed and dismissed from their jobs. simply because they have asked to leave the Soviet Union. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the date when the Taratutas first filed for visas to Israel. Since filing that application for exit visas. the Taratutas have lost their Jobs. Aba. a former professor of mathematics. now works as an attendant at a Leningrad bathhouse. while Ida. a translator of scientific Journals. now gives private English lessons. The Taratuta family has become the subject of harassment by the Soviet authorities. and after a recent newspaper article accusing him of being an enemy of the state.
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emigration visas