A First: Wizo Opens in Moscow

The Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) has just formed a local group in Moscow to educate women and children about Jewish issues.

With the increase in Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, there is also an increased demand by Jews for a more intensive Jewish life, according to Inna Joffe Uspensky, the head of the Moscow nucleus. About twenty women attended the first seminar, including representatives of all refusenik groups in Moscow.

While a WIZO delegation led by Raya Jaglom, president of WIZO, had visited Moscow in 1964 at the official invitation of the Soviet Women’s Committee, no attempts had been made to start a group in the U.S.S.R. until now.