Prisoners for Zion

"We are now moving toward an understanding with the Soviet Union that should significantly diminish the obstacles to emigration and ease the hardship of prospective emigrants."

--Henry Kissinger

After the U.S. Secretary of State made public his "understanding" with the Kremlin last September, hopes soared among Soviet Jews that harassment of would-be emigres to Israel might come to a halt. Soviet denial of the existence of that understanding last month dampened those hopes--and rightly so. Despite passage by the U.S. Congress of a trade bill that gives the Soviet Union most-favored-nation status*--a bill that was contingent upon Moscow's easing of emigration restrictions--there has been a marked upsurge within the U.S.S.R. of harassment of Russian Jews. Kissinger predicted earlier that congressional pressure on the emigration issue would prove to be counterproductive.

Arrests of prospective Jewish emigres, as well as a sensational show trial in the Ukraine, indicate that there has been a change in the relatively conciliatory policy that had allowed 54,000 Jews to leave the country in the past two years. Only 20,000 Soviet Jews emigrated in 1974, compared with 34,000 during the previous year; last month only 900 Russian emigrants arrived in Israel--the lowest total for any month in four years. Since non-Jewish Soviet citizens are not allowed to emigrate freely either, Moscow's attitude toward Jews who want to leave is consistent, if hardly pleasant.

Whisked Away. Since Congress passed the trade bill, at least seven Leningrad Jewish activists have been picked up by the police in connection with a planned hunger strike protesting emigration barriers. Four refuseniks (Soviet Jews whose applications to go to Israel have been turned down), Georgi Sokiryansky, Iosif Blikh, Israel Varnovitsky and Vladimir Sverdlin, were arrested while on their way to Moscow for the strike. Physicist Lev Zhigun, a prominent Zionist and refusenik, was poisoned in a Leningrad cafe. An ambulance whisked him away to a hospital, where he was held incommunicado for ten days. Last week the Soviet Supreme Court denied the appeal of Mikhail Levyev, the former manager of a Moscow store who was sentenced to death last month for bribe-taking. A police investigation unearthed no evidence against him until Levyev prepared to emigrate to Israel.

Another case of recent repression involves Mikhail Shtern, 56, an eminent Jewish endocrinologist, who was sentenced on New Year's Eve to eight years at hard labor on trumped-up charges. During his pretrial interrogation, Shtern was told by a prosecutor that "the accusation is connected with your desire to emigrate, because the emigration of Jews discredits our country." At his trial in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa, the doctor was accused of taking bribes from his patients, involving 775 rubles ($1,050), one chicken, two geese, three baskets of apples and 70 eggs. Actually, these were either repayments for hard-to-get medicines personally purchased by Shtern or small gifts from grateful patients. More than 3,000 Western physicians have protested the trial, and an international campaign is mounting to free him and 34 other victims of the anti-emigration drive, who are called "Prisoners for Zion."

Another show trial of a refusenik is scheduled this month in Leningrad. The accused is Vladimir Maramzin, who is charged with disseminating his "anti-Soviet" writings; in fact, he is the author of nonpolitical books for children. If convicted, Maramzin is subject to possibly seven years' imprisonment. Maramzin was arrested last July, right after he visited a Soviet visa office where he applied for emigration to Israel. The secret police arrived in his apartment just as he was beginning to fill out the application forms.

Although similar acts of repression have taken place in the past, their recent intensification has greatly reduced the number of new requests for exit visas. But if the Kremlin should relent, there are at least 130,000 pending applications that have not been granted.

* Most-favored-nation status was already enjoyed by all non-Communist countries, plus Poland and Yugoslavia.

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