Students Will Lobby Congress On Behalf of Soviet Jewry

More than 20 Harvard students will join college students from all over the East Coast tomorrow to lobby on Capital Hill to protest of restrictions on the rights of Jews living in the Soviet Union and the recent sharp curtailment of Jewish emigration by the Soviet government.

More than 700 students are expected to converge on Washington to meet with their state legislature and other government officials, David B. Marcu, a Brandeis student and chairman of the Student Concision for Soviet Jewry, said yesterday. This year's trip in the sixth annual Washington lobbying effort organized by the Condition.

Human rights violations within the Soviet Union are particularly serious now because the Soviet government as "closing the door on emigration," Marcu said. Last year only 9,447 Jews were allowed to emigrate-down from an all time high of more than 50,000 in 1979. This year the figure may be as low as 3,000, the added.

Kate S. Sugarman, '83 who organized the Harvard lobbying group, said yesterday the United States must make it advantageous for the Soviets to allow emigration. If the United States shows no concern, then the Soviet Union will ignore the issue, she added. "The worst thing we can do is to be silent."

In addition to Congressional lobbying, student groups will meet with officials from the Departments of State and Commence and the National Security Council. Richard E. Pipes Baird Professor of History who is currently a senior staff member of the National Security Council, will meet with one student delegation to discuss the current status of Soviet Jews.

Pipes said yesterday that the Administration has no specific policy regarding Soviet Jews. "We believe in human rights, cultural rights and free emigration but out actual influence is very limited."