Soviet Jewish Emigration Reaches 21-Year Record Level: 6,756 in August

More Jews left the Soviet Union in August than in any month in the last 21 years, the chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry said Friday.

The conference, a nationwide group that has monitored the emigration rate since 1968, reported that 6,756 Jews left last month, surpassing the previous high of 4,746 in October, 1979. Of those who left in August, 11.7%, went to Israel.

“This is a development of major significance, and we hope that the upward trend in emigration, which we have witnessed since the beginning of 1989, will continue,” said Shoshana S. Cardin, conference chairman.

Since January, 33,444 Jews have been allowed to leave the Soviet Union, and the total for 1989 could surpass the previous high of 51,320 in 1979, the conference said. Last year, 18,965 Jews emigrated.

Soviet restrictions on Jewish emigration have been a point of contention between U.S. and Soviet officials for years.

Bush Administration officials have indicated that higher levels of emigration and proposed relaxations in Soviet visa laws could prompt the United States to waive provisions of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment. That law requires higher trade tariffs on Soviet imports as long as emigration is limited.

The newly constituted Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union’s full-time legislature, is expected to consider a new emigration law when it convenes later this month. However, it is not clear how liberal the law might be.

In Rome, meanwhile, several hundred Soviet Jews demonstrated at the U.S. Embassy to protest being denied immigration to America as political refugees. An embassy spokesman said there are now 12,000 Soviet Jews in Italy seeking the U.S. visas and that 5,000 of them have been refused the status.