Soviets allowed fewer Jews to emigrate in 1981

The number of Jews allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union fell to under 10 ,000 in 1981, its lowest level in a decade, according to the National and Greater New York Conferences for Soviet Jewry.

Officials of the two groups also claimed there was evidence of increased harassment of Jews in the Soviet Union and, according to Seymour Lachman, the head of the Greater New York Conference, ''a concentrated effort to eliminate Jews as a cultural group in the USSR.''