Their efforts. unfortunately. are rewarded infrequently. This past Friday. however. they were able to share the joy of Lev Blitshtein and his family. The Blitshteins first applied for permission to emigrate in 1974. At that time Lev Blitshtein was denied a visa on the grounds that. as an administrator in the meat and dairy ministry. he was privy to State secrets. Finally. over 12 years after he first applied for permission to leave. an exit visa was granted in early February. Lev Blitshtein is but one of the over 370.000 Jews who have applied for permission to leave the Soviet Union. Recently I received a book titled "A Uniquely Jewish Ust: The Refuseniks of Russia." This book contains the names of 11.000 individuals who have repeatedly applied for. and been denied. permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union. These people are the core of the Refusenik group in the Soviet Union. but they are only a small fraction of the number of Jews who have applied for permission to emigrate. Since 1968. a total of 643.765 people have requested exit visas. This number exceeds the total population of my congressional district by more than 100.000 people. Of these requests. 266.899 have been granted.
Keywords matched
emigrate visas visa