Speech #1000079069

Yet. unfairly. certain governments deny basic human rights. Precisely because human rights have always been inseparable from the American identity. it follows that a human rights policy is more than just an appendage to our foreign policy. Therefore. we must continue to bring attention to the dire needs of Soviet Jews who are denied the right to emigrate and consequently are granted status as refuseniks. We must all work with organizations that fight the uphill battle for freedom of the Soviet Jews. The Congressional Call to Conscience Vigil. sponsored by the Union of Councils of Soviet Jews. is one such endeavor. and it is our duty to maintain this important vigil. Over 400.000 Jewish refuseniks are considered "nonpersons." losing citizenship. residence. occupations and even spouses and children who are allowed to slip through the Soviet system. only because they have begun the process of attempted emigration. Emigration statistics have never been so low. yet these numbers represent human lives and in increasing numbers each year. lives are ruined as refuseniks experience gross violations of their fundamental human rights. Perhaps most poignant is the case of separated spouses. husbands and wives who leave one another in the hope they will work around emigration laws. The Soviet Government has continualy denied that there is a Jewish problem. Soviet officials also claim that all Jews wishing to leave have done so. and. therefore. family reunification provisions of the Helsinki Final Act are no longer necessary. However. this is not the case. and my adopted refusenik. Yakov Rabinovich. exemplifies this phenomenon. My adopted refusenik. Yakov Rabinovich. first applied for permission to emigrate with his family in 1978. There years after he first requested an emigration visa. permission was granted to his wife and two children. Rabinovich encouraged them to leave in the hope that he would soon follow them. Since 1980. he has been denied permission to emigrate by an arbitrary Soviet bureaucracy. spuriously characterized as having access to "state secrets." Probably more tragic than any other aspect of Rabinovichs private torture is his forced separation from his family. Rabinovich divorced his wife because he was told it would make emigration easier for at least one of them. Yet. Rabinovichs son graduated from Brandeis University in 1985. and Rabinovich has not seen his wife or his son since 1980 when they left the Soviet Union.