Students Write Letters For Jewish Refusenik Family

Outraged by the Soviet Union's treatment of a Jewish refusenik family, a group of 20 students held a letter writing session last night to pressure Soviet officials into allowing the family to emigrate to Israel.

At the meeting, sponsored by Harvard Students for Soviet Jewry (HSSJ), the students urged members of the Supreme Soviet to permit Dr. Gennady Khassin, his wife, Natalia, and their two daughters to reunite with their relatives in Israel.

Since 1976, the Khassins have been consistently refused exit visas and over the past five years have been the victims of increased KGB harrassment, said Melissa B. Milgram, president of HSSJ.

"We hope that the Khassins will be allowed to emigrate," Milgram said, adding that Soviets are extremely sensitive to Americans' letters, and even if the family is not permitted to emigrate, "at least they'll be protected from future harassment."

"I think that it will be beneficial to the Soviet Union, at least for their public relations, to release them, and this is the main thrust of our letters," said Zinovy Reichstein, a fourth-year graduate student who does research for HSSJ. But he added, "We're not trying to get involved in politics and change Soviet policies in certain areas."

In past years, the Khassins' Moscow apartment has been searched repeatedly, with the KGB confiscating various religious articles and legal documents, HSSJ members said.

Two years ago, a man who claimed to be working for the KGB threatened to murder the Khassins unless they agreed to pay him 25,000 rubles. Although the Khassins reported the incident to the authorities, they received no protection, students said.

When Gennady's mother died in Israel in 1983, the Moscow Office of Registration refused to issue a temporary visa to allow him to attend the funeral on the grounds that this would be "contradicting the interests of the USSR."

In a recent letter signed by 600 Harvard students and sent to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.), the students argued that this refusal violates the Final Act of the 1975 Helsinki Accord, which requires that such applications be handled in a "positive and humanitarian spirit with special attention being given to requests of an urgent character."

Since last spring, when Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) wrote a letter to the Soviets on their behalf, the Khassins have received even more intense persecution.

Reichstein said that an attempted filmed interrogation of Gennady on the Hatch letter, a visit from a member of the Supreme Soviet, and the publication of an article in the Moscow Evening News claiming that Natalia was corrupting the minds of Soviet youth, all suggest that the couple may face imminent arrest.