Speech #990066267

I write to urge you to raise one in particular with Mr. Gorbachev. and that is the continuing repression of Jews in the Soviet Union. From 1968 to 1981. more than 640.000 Soviet Jews applied for exit visas. the first step toward leaving the Soviet Union. Yet only 260.000 have been permitted to emigrate. and the number of exit visas granted is declining. In 1979. 50.000 Soviet Jews were permitted to leave. By 1982. only 2.668 were allowed to emigrate. By 1984. the number had plummeted to only 1.000. and only 499 have been allowed to emigrate this year. Of the Jews remaining In the Soviet Union. at least 380.000 have indicated their desire to leave. hut have been refused permission to do so by the authorities. These are the "refuseniks." who have become the targets for an unrelenting persecution by the Soviet state.