I welcome this opportunity to join my colleagues in this years prayer and fast vigil for Soviet Jewry. It is extremely important that we continue to acknowledge those persons who have been denied permission to leave the Soviet Union and who are not only prisoners of body. but of conscience. The plight of Soviet Jews has worsened dramatically over the last decade. with emigration slowing to a trickle of 1.300 in 1983 and only some 3.000 in the preceding year. To illustrate the deterioration of the situation in recent years. the Soviet Jewish emigration in 1979 was estimated to be 51.000. Commensurate with the drastic drop in emigration is a neartotal prohibition on the teaching of the Hebrew language. Jewish religious instruction. and the celebration of Jewish holidays in the Soviet Union. In the view of some observers. the Soviet authorities have embarked upon a campaign of cultural genocide with the aim of eliminating any vestige of Jewish culture within the Soviet Union. Furthermore. the Government has launched a campaign of cruelty and harassment against a great number of Soviet Jews who have filed for visas. many attempting to join their families who have already secured asylum in Israel. 1984 marks the 14th anniversary of the arrests which led to the Leningrad trials. On June 15. 1970. 11 men were arrested and charged with attempting to hijack a Soviet aircraft. All were Jewish. all were driven to this last desperate attempt to escape the Soviet Union after all conventional and legal means had failed.
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emigration visas