Letter to Kremlin Ministry of Interior Advocating for Dr. Schapira's Emigration from Soviet Russia (1972)

View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

Letter Advocating for Dr. Schapira's Emigration from Soviet Russia (1972)

Dear David: I’d like to invite you to join me in a dvar mitzvah – and one that is urgent and pikuach nefesh. The enclosed letter is one I received from a Russian Jew who spent 27 years in Siberia, and is now trying to get his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter out of Russia. The letter is self-explanatory. We have to help, and I’d like it to be done as soon as humanly possible if we’re to be of any assistance. First, call Western Union or RCA and send off the following telegram (a night-letter os cheapest) to: 1. Ambassador Dobrynin, USSR Embassy, Washington DC; and 2. Minister of Interior, Moscow, USSR JUSTICE AND DECENCY DEMAND PERMISSION FOR DR. BENJAMIN SCHAPIRA AND FAMILY OF BELGOROD OBLASTNOI TO BE REUNITED WITH THEIR FAMILY IN ISRAEL. URGENTLY IMPLORE YOUR INTERCESSION. PROF. NORMAN LAMM Ask the telegram people to send you copies of the cables as soon as possible.

Soviet Jewry

Letter to Chairman Kosygin Advocating for Dr. Schapira's Emigration from Soviet Russia (1972)

Dear Mr. Kosygin: I take the privilege of sending you enclosed a copy of a telegram that I recently sent to President Nixon and Secretary General Waldheim on behalf of a large number of colleagues and friends. We are all of us concerned about the fate of Dr. Benjamin Schapira of Belgorod. I implore you in the name of decency and compassion, as well as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to which your country is a signatory, to allow Dr. Schapira and his family to emigrate to Israel and be reunited with his old and sick parents. Certainly a great power like the U.S.S.R. will not suffer if it will allow one family to be reunited and allow an old and sick father and mother to have their one great dream fulfilled, that of seeing their children once again.Respectfully yours,Rabbi Norman LammNL:cwEnc.

Soviet Jewry

Letter to Premier Brezhnev Advocating for Dr. Schapira's Emigration from Soviet Russia (1972)

Dear Mr. Brezhnev: I take the privilege of sending you enclosed copy of a telegram that I recently sent to President Nixon and Secretary General Waldheim on behalf of a large number of colleagues and friends. We are all of us concerned about the fate of Dr. Benjamin Schapira of Belgorod. I implore you in the name of decency and compassion as well as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to which your country is a signatory, to allow Dr. Schapira and his family to emigrate to Israel and be reunited with his old and sick parents. Certainly a great power like the U.S.S.R. will not suffer if it will allow one family to be reunited and allow an old father and mother to have their one great dream fulfilled, that of seeing their children once again.Respectfully yours,Rabbi Norman LammNL:cwEnc.

Soviet Jewry