Campaign Announced for U.S. Jewish Community to Adopt 80,000 Soviet Jewish Families

The Research Institute on Soviet Jewry announced today that it will launch a nation-wide campaign to have the American Jewish community adopt 80,000 Soviet Jewish families who have applied for permission to leave Russia and to raise the necessary funds to provide these families with complete housing units when they arrive in Israel. Morris Brafman, chairman of the Institute and a delegate to the World Conference of Jewish Communities on Soviet Jewry held in Brussels last February, said his group will present the family adoption and housing plan among several other proposals to a National Conference on Soviet Jewry scheduled for October 22-25 at the New York Hilton Hotel. The Institute chairman said the conference was called after consultation with Jewish Action Groups in 11 cities around the country “who have decided that the time is long past due for the creation of a national grass roots movement totally committed to the repatriation of 3.5 million Russian Jews and their successful resettlement in Israel.”

“This conference,” Brafman added, “will be the first attempt to break the deadly five month period of silence and inaction on the Soviet Jewish question that has ensued since Brussels. We will attempt to put into effect the resolutions of five special study commissions at Brussels including one calling for the creation of a permanent international secretariat charged with negotiating with the USSR for the orderly, peaceful evacuation of every Russian Jew who has expressed the desire to go home.” Brafman said the conference participants “will embrace the entire spectrum of Jewish political and social thought from the far left to the far right, from the establishment to the anti-establishment.” He asserted that the conference will give priority to formulating long-range plans for Israel’s social needs, including services and facilities to help absorb Russian Jews.