Speech #980142300

Mr. Speaker. there are few issues upon which the Members of this body are in greater agreement than that of the plight of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union. Time and again. we have risen on this floor to challenge Soviet au-. thorities to live up to their international obligations and permit their citizens to emigrate. In the past year. that task has become morenot lessurgent as emigration rates have plunged. This longstanding problem took on new personal significance for me this past summer when I travelled with the delegation headed by our colleague from Washington to the Soviet Union. During that visit. I surreptitiously visited a dank Moscow apartment to meet the parents of a 6monthold girl named "Vera." The dream of Veras parents is that one spring she may become a "sabra." which. in Hebrew. means "cactus." It has become idiomatic (hard on the outside. soft in the middle) for any girl born in or immigrated to Israel before the age of 3. The dream is not lightly held. Seven years ago when Veras parents first applied to emigrate from the Soviet Union. they prayed their only son would be brought up an Israeli citizen. But he contracted an obscure form of cancer and despite pleas to the authorities to allow him access to Western doctors who might be able to cure his illness or at least prolong his life. no visa was forthcoming. The child died 2 years ago. Today. like parents the world over. Veras mother and father desire above all a better life for their offspring. The hurdles. however. for this "refusenik" family are towering. Whereas the Soviet Union is party to the Helsinki accords. which. among other principles. enshrine the right to emigrate. Soviet leaders have. as my colleagues know. cracked down on emigration and cranked up on antiSemitism. Four years ago 51.230 Jews were allowed to leave Russia. Last year. as tension between Moscow and Washington heightened. Jewish emigration plummeted to 2.688. This year the number is running at about 120 per month. The roots of antiSemitism run deep in Slavic history. indeed in the human experience.