Jewish Students Reported Defying
Soviet Govt. on All Judaism Issues
BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) —
Soviet Jewish students sing Is-
raeli songs in public places, wear
Israeli-flag lapel pins and in gen-
eral are "contesting and defying
the Soviets on every issue pertain-
ing to Judaism," according to an
eye-witness report by an Amer-
ican Jewish student who recently
visited the Soviet Union.
The report as made by Zev Za-
roslaysky, a member of the Cali-
fornia Students for Soviet Jews
and a student at the University
of California at Los Angeles. The
report was published in "The
Other Stand," a student publica-
tion issued in Montreal and re-
printed in the April "Jewish Radi-
cal," published by the Berkeley
Union of Jewish Students here.
and the Jewish Liberation Jour-
nal, a Socialist-Zionist monthly.
He also reported being in-
volved in a Simhat-Torah cele-
bration in Leningrad in which
uniformed policemen savagely
attacked Russian Jewish student
participants.
Reporting that "defiance of the
Soviet anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic
policy has become a way of life
for increasing numbers of Soviet
Jews in recent months," the UCLA
student said that "the Russian Jew
is becoming a serious factor with
which the Soviets must contend.
He is becoming nationalistic and
accordingly more eager to express
his culture at every given oppor-
tunity."
One of those opportunities is the
observance of Simhat Torah, dur-
ing which, in recent years, many
thousands of Sovet Jews have open-
ly demonstrated their Jewish iden-
tity in many Soviet cities.
The student said Russian Jews,
particularly young Jews, "look for-
ward to this day for it affords
them their only opportunity to
openly demonstrate their Jewish-
ness and their love for Israel.
"This is something that normal-
ly cannot be done without the risv.
of suffering fates similar to those
of the imprisoned Boris Kochubiev-
sky," the Jewish engineer sent to
prison for seeking to emigrate with
his family to Israel, "or Ilya Ripps,
the Riga youth who sought to im-
molate himself in protest against
Soviet anti-Jewish policies and
whose fate is not known to the
West."
When thousands of young Rus-
sian Jews converged on a Lenin-
grad synagogue for the Jewish
holiday, they found it had been
barricaded by police, as was the
street. Zaroslaysky reported that
a man who he was told was a
secret police agent, advised him
to leave the scene because
"there would be trouble." Almost
immediately, he reported, a
friend named Gene Alexander,
another American visitor who
came to Leningrad to partici-
pate in the festivities, was man-
handled by the five Soviet plain-
clothesmen in front of three uni-
formed Leningrad policemen,
who did not come to his assist-
ance.
At the same time, police di-
verted traffic into Lermontoysky
Prospect, the street on which the
synagogue is located. Five minutes
later, the police moved in to dis-
perse the crowd, by then about
4.000. Moving up the street, the
students sang "Havenu Sholem
Aleichim." The students also sang
Russian songs praising Israel.
"At this point, a uniformed po-
liceman began attacking a Jewish
student. A host of policemen came
to the officer's assistance, savage-
ly beating, kicking, and dragging
the student across the street." An-
other Jewish student was similar-
ly assaulted and the two students
were pinned against a barred gate
and choked by three plainclothes-
men. Both students kept yelling, in
Yiddish, "I am a Jew" everytime
they had the chance to do so.
Widespread clashes then broke out
between police and the Jews, said
Yaroslaysky.
The UCLA student reported that
only after he, the other American
and his wife "began yelling, ob- authorities to open gates to Jews
icenities at the police and criticiz- who want to emigrate to Israel
ing the Soviet government's anti- and to grant the others full reli-
Semiic policies, with the resultant pious and cultural freedom and to
realization by the police that there end the official campaign of anti-
were foreigners witnessing his Semitism "masquerading as anti-
crime, that the police released the Zionism."
students." Before doing so. the
The rally expressed "uncondi-
UCLA student added, they took the tional solidarity" with "Soviet
names of the students and the Jews who fight proudly for their
names of their schools.
national, cultural and religious
In fighting back "and in not rights under the Soviet constitu-
taking the attack by the police tion and especially for their right
lying down," the students reacted to go to Israel."
with new defiance, Yaroslaysky
reported. He added that "Three
years ago they would not have
fought back" nor would they have
"defiantly danced in the streets
of Leningrad."
In Buenos Aires, cold autumn
the
rains failed to dampen the ardor
of 20,000 Jews from Argentina and
13 other Latin American countries
attending a mass rally to demand
freedom for Soviet Jews. The rally
is taking orders for and will
was held at Luna Park, this city's
deliver flowers for its annual
largest stadium. Its theme was
fund-raising community serv-
"Let My People Go."
ice.
The delegates called on Soviet
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