An Opening of the Soviet Door?

There are many denials of civil rights in the Soviet Union. Freedom to emigrate is high among them, and central to that issue--central because of the long and often brutal history of Russian anti-Semitism that has continued under Communist rule--has been the refusal to let out all Soviet Jews who want to leave. Now two American Jewish leaders say that they have been told by Soviet officials that the policy on Jewish emigration will soon be eased and that greater toleration will be extended to Jewish religious practices. If true, this will mark a welcome shift in Soviet attitudes. The real test will be how far the Soviets let the change run.

Morris R. Abram, president of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and Edgar M. Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, say that Soviet officials have pledged that as many as 12,000 Russian Jews will be given emigration visas this year. These are people who have been invited to join close relatives abroad. In addition, the Soviets would allow some new synagogues to be opened, permit the importation of Jewish religious books and perhaps even allow some Russian Jews to undertake rabbinical studies abroad. If these agreements are carried out, Abram indicated, he and others who are concerned about the plight of Soviet Jews would recommend dropping current congressional bans on preferential credits and tariffs for the Soviet Union.

All this is fine, so far as it goes. But much remains to be done before a basic change in Soviet policy can be said to have occurred. There are probably hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews who would apply to emigrate if they thought that they would be allowed to leave. There are undoubtedly many more Soviet citizens who would prefer to live elsewhere if they had the chance to do so, as the limited departure allowed ethnic Germans and Armenians from the Soviet Union has shown.

The Soviet system fears granting full freedom of emigration because it fears that potential mass departures would dramatize the profound dissatisfactions that exist under that system. Letting 11,000 or 12,000 people out is a modest victory in the struggle for human rights. A continuing denial of emigration rights to many times that number of would-be emigrants makes it clear how much must still be done.