Speech #1000128122

Lipchin. Mr. Lieberman denied the charge. and yet Soviet officials refused to grant him an exit visa. Unable to work in their professions while they awaited approval. Mikhail Lieberman and his wife Hanna experienced a great deal of hardship during the years they waited for an exit visa. In 1978. I asked the State Department to intervene in the Lieberman case. In April of this year I wrote directly to General Secretary Gorbachev about the Liebermans. requesting approval of their application. Now. at long last. there seems to be good news for this Jewish family. Recently published lists of Jews approved for emigration from the U.S.S.R. include Mikhail Lieberman. and I am optimistic that he and his family will soon be settling in Israel. It is obvious from these and other happily resolved cases that the pendulum of Soviet policy on Jewish emigration has swung in the direction of liberalization. We should not forget. however. that this is a new and recent development. a policy change that can be reversed again just as suddenly as it was this year. I would like to close my contribution to the 1987 Call to Conscience with the message that we must not let the approval of 6.000 or 10.000 or even 50.000 exit visas allow us to become complacent. For every Tsalo Lipchin and Mikhail Lieberman. there are many more Soviet Jews waiting anxiously for permission to emigrate. For every wellpublicized emigration of a Natan Shcharansky or an Ida Nudel. there are thousands of less famous refuseniks aching to leave the Soviet Union. and suffering for their decision to come forward and apply to leave. Indeed. there is understandable fear that. as notable Soviet Jews are granted exit visas. the world will believe that all goes well and efforts to obtain religious freedom for Jews in the Soviet Union can be relaxed. As Americans we are in many ways guardians of the principle of religious freedom. For this reason. I believe we have a moral obligation to champion the cause of Soviet Jews. Until the unlikely day when genuine religious freedom is established in the Soviet Union. or when Soviet emigration is freed from the capricious grip of the totalitarian Soviet bureaucracy. we must not give up this struggle.