Pam Cohen and Marillyn Tallman of the Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry and Lynn Singer. president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry placed a call from my office to Inna Elbert in the Soviet Union. Innas husband. Lev. is in prison accused of draft evasion. but his only real crime is his desire to emigrate to Israel. to practice his Jewish faith and teach Hebrew. The news here is that we got through to Inna with our message of hope and promise of help for her. and talked to her for 17 minutes without being cutoff. which. as regular callers to Soviet refuseniks will tell you. is extremely unusual. We cannot know for certain whether there was any importance in calling from a Congressmans office. But I would urge Members who help in other ways with Soviet emigration not only to allow their constitutents to make calls to Soviet refuseniks from their offices. but to tell them of the availablity of this approach and encourage them to use it.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration