rr--
Fears for Soviet Jewry Mount as Trial Begins
"We beg you to intercede be-
fore the CPSU (Communist Party
of the Soviet Union) and the gov-
ernment of the USSR on our be-
half, so that we should be per-
mitted to emigrate to Israel for
reunification with our relatives
and dear ones," the appeal con-
cluded.
(Continued from Page 1)
contact with Jewish leaders in
other Soviet cities," the AJC de-
clared. The "hot line" message
was recorded by Phil Baum, assis-
tant executive director of the
American Jewish Congress.
In a fact sheet offered to "hot
line" callers, the AJC charged
that a "high-level policy decision
was made last spring to under-
take a nationally-coordinated,
concerted KGB action to crack
down on the many Jews who per-
sist in an overt struggle to leave
the USSR for Israel in order to
maintain their Jewish identity."
The document charged that en-
trapment and forced confessions
were used in the detention of
Jews arr ested at the Smolny
airport on charges of attempted
hijacking. It attributed the infor-
mation to relatives and friends of
the Soviet Jews "living abroad but
in the closest feasible contact at
home." The people believe, the
fact sheet asserted, "that the Riga
Jews were entrapped by someone
planted in their midst. Privy to
their passionate desire to emigrate
to Israel and their repeated frus-
trated applications for exit per-
mits, he gained their confidence
by posing as a pilot and offering
to fly them out of the country in
the airplane he claimed he was
normally scheduled to pilot on a
routine domestic flight." It is now
feared that these circumstances
will be distorted in forced confes-
sions extracted from the prisoners,
the fact sheet declared.
Meanwhile, two more Jews have
been arrested in Leningrad in re-
cent days and are being held with-
out charges, it was reported in
London by reliable sources. They
were identified as Victor Shpilbans,
a 28-year-old physician, and Mi-
chael Komblit, 33, a dentist.
Describing themselves as sur-
vivors of the "monstrous policy
of genocide" of the Nazis, who
made Riga a center of their pro-
gram of mass annihilation of Jews.
the writers say they have applied
repeatedly for permits to join
•
LEONID RIGERMAN
street in Riga and is still in a
hospital there. The youngster was
identified as the brother of Boris
Mafpzer, a Riga Jew arrested re-
cently as a dissenter.
According to the source, local
police have not found the assailants
and are not making a serious ef-
fort to find them.
For the first time, Soviet Jews
have asked the Communist Party
in the United States for help in
getting permisison to leave the
Scviet Union and join other mem-
bers of their families in Israel.
Such an "appeal to the Comparty
of the United States of America"
signed by 92 Jewish family heads
in Riga was made public here by
the American Jewish Conference
on Soviet Jewry.
The appeal is addressed also to
the secretary general of the CC
(Central Committee) of the Corn-
party of the U. S. A., Gus Hall"
Their arrests brought to 12 the
and the "national chairman of the
number of Jews arrested in Lenin-
party, Henry Winston."
grad since last June.
It says that the writers "are
According to a report from an-
other reliable source, a 16-year-old powerless to attain a just solution
Jewish boy, Monus Mafpzer, was to the problem of the emigration
recently attacked and severely of Jews from the Soviet Union to
beaten by unknown persons in a Israel." ,
Jewish Newspaper Week Under Way
Sir Alec Douglas-Home
soon a decision was likely to be Secretary
and other British officials on the
Middle East which Israel regard-
Board of Deputies Urges
ed as pro-Arab.
Soviet Boss to Terminate
Soviet Mid East Involvement
Persecution of Jews
LONDON (JTA)—The Board of Spurs Anti-Semitism in Russia,
Deputies of British Jews urged Ex-Ambassador Bohlen Warns
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Charles
President Nikolai Podgorny of the
Soviet Union to take steps to termi- E. Bohlen, former United States
ambassador
to Moscow, warned
nate the Kremlin's "campaign of
persecution against Jews whose here that the deeper the Soviet
only alleged crime is their wish to Union • becomes involved in the
go to Israel." The Board of Depu- Middle East the worse anti-Semi-
ties, the central representative tism will get in Russia.
Bohlen, regarded as one of the
body of British Jewry, approved
the text of a telegram to Presi- leading American authorities on
dent Podgorny expressing its con- Soviet Russia and Communism, ad-
cern over the forthcoming trial dressed the annual dinner meet-
of 31 Jews for an alleged attempt ing of the Washington chapter of
to hijack a Russian airliner at the American Jewish Committee.
Smolny Airport near Leningrad
"I wish with all my heart that I
last June 15.
could give you hope" for the Jews
The telegram charged that the in the Soviet Union, Bohlen said,
aim of the trial and of connected but the "logic of developments in
searches of Jewish homes, arrests the Middle East where the Soviets
and confiscations, was to intimidate are digging in deeper and deeper,
Jews who want to go to Israel and especially in Egypt, means that it
to dissuade them from pressing will be more and more anti-Israel.
for their lawful right to emigrate. There is very little chance of the
According to Michael Fidler, Soviets looking upon Israel with
chairman of the Board of Deputies, sympathy."
Bohlen went on to observe that
"the position of Soviet Jews is de-
teriorating rapidly and we are as- "It is a sad commentary on the
state of civilization in 1970 to
sembled here to protest against
contemplate the plight of Jewry
the treatment of Soviet Jews and
to try to prevent a tragedy." He in the Soviet Union. It attacks
expressed the hope that the tele- the conscience not only of Jewry
gram to President Podgorny "may but of all nations. It should be
the preoccupation not only of
evoke a response."
Lord Barnett Janner, who heads the United Nations but of our
own government."
the board's foreign affairs com-
He said two elements were
mittee, said that "unless the prose-
cution of Soviet Jews stops, the responsible for the "hostility" of
Soviet Union will join a group of the Soviet government toward the
discredited Jew-hating countries." Jewish people. One was "the basic
He said that "Soviet authorities ideology of the Communist Party
should realize that Jews cannot in the Soviet Union and the other
live as Jews in the Soviet Union was the state of Israel itself."
He said the "extraordinarily en-
and therefore they must be per-
thusiastic reception" Mrs. Golda
mitted to go."
Fidler, a Conservative MP, said Meir received when as Israel's first
the board would not hesitate to ambassador to Russia she visited
present its views to the Tory gov- the Moscow synagogue, "convinced
ernment, "just as we never hesi- Stalin that Jewry was evil and that
tated to present our views to the Jewry was evil and that Jews were
Labor government." He referred not the kind of Russian citizens
to recent statements by Foreign he desired."
rendered.
their "surviving relatives who,
saved by a miracle from the death
camps have found a haven in
Israel."
The Riga Jews, who with their
families number 322 persons, cited
mass repatriation in recent times
of "Poles from the USSR to Po-
land, of Spaniards to Spain, of
Kurds to Kurdistan, of Czechs to
Czechoslovakia, of Armenians from
various European countries to Ar-
menia, of Lithuanians. Latvians
and Estonians who desired to re-
turn to the Baltics."
"We are permeated with the
spirit of internationalism and of
respect toward people of all races
and nations," the petitioners wrote,
adding:
"But, as for any people, the na-
tional cultural traditions and the
historical heritage of our people
are near and dear to us. From time
immemorial we have been deeply
tied by innumerable and invisible
bonds with our people, with its
past, present and future."
Daniel Greer, first deputy com-
missioner for ports and terminals,
said he will handle legal de-
tails here for Leonid Rigerman, a
30-year-old Russian-born Jew who
has met Soviet resistance in his
attempts to assert his United
States citizenship. Rigerman was
scheduled to appear in court in
Moscow on charges of failing to
leave the premises of the Ameri-
can Embassy there on Sept. 8 and
twice this past Monday. when he
tried to see U. S. officials about
certifying his citizenship. Riger-
man's mother, who also lives in
(From the files of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Moscow, was born in Brooklyn and
wants to return with her son. She
40 Years Ago This Week 1930
had gone to the Soviet Union in
The Minsk Soviet rejected a plea for library facilities by Jewish
1931 at the insistance of her late children because it was written in Yiddish instead of Russian—even
husband, a Communist.
though the Soviet president and most of his colleagues spoke Yiddish
This Week in Jewish History
The U. S. Embassy in Moscow
has protested to the Soviet Foreign
Ministry the barring of Rigerman
from the embassy in violation of
a Soviet-American consular treaty.
Rigerman said the policemen
called him "an enemy of the So-
viet people," removed him from
the embassy steps and bore him
away by car.
Greer, who recently spent 21/2
weeks in the USSR with Rabbi
Steven Riskin of Lincoln Square
Synagogue, told the Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency that Rigerman, a
computer programer, he signed
and not Russian. -
A Jewish beggar was found hanged, an apparent suicide, in
Prophet Elijah synagogue in Haifa.
The Soviet Union granted economic privileges and rights to 100,000
Jewish artisans.
For the first time in reestablished Poland, national elections ended
without a single independent Jew in the Senate.
A Budapest court acquitted all 83 defendants in connection with
the anti-Semitic outbursts in Borscha in July. Also freed were 17 Jews
accused of fighting back.
Berlin police president Arthur Grzesinski warned the Nazis he
would ban them if they continued attacks on political opponents.
Jacob Benjamin Katzenelson, Hebrew-Yiddish writer and father of
poet Isaac Katzenelson, died in Lodz at 75.
Molly Picon, starring in "The Girl of Yesterday" in New York,
denied rumors she would join D. W. Griffith's film company.
"a few" petitions demanding emi-
10 Years Ago This Week: 1960
gration rights for Soviet Jews, as
A personage identified only as "the third man" in the Lavon Affair
a result of which he has been
"harassed" at work and followed was sentenced to 12 years for violating the Official Secrets Ordinance
and the State Security Law.
and bugged "for quite some time."
Greer, who was not present at
the times of the apparent rebuffs
to Rigerman by the Soviet police,
emphasized that he would be han-
dling Rigerman's citizenship pro-
cedures not as a member of the
Lindsay administration but as an
individual.
This week has been proclaimed National Jewish Newspaper Week
by the American Jewish Press Association. The chairman of this year's
Jewish Newspaper Week, Adolph Rosenberg, editor of the Southern
Israelite, Atlanta, stated: "Through the welter of turmoil and tumult,
Jewish newspapers furnish facts and commentary to point the way
to comprehension and perspective. They separate the real from the
phony, the significant from the irrelevant in the multi-faceted ava-
lanche of publicity, propaganda and facts which pass onto the edi-
torial desks. Jewish papers provide a sense of balance and positive
Judgment to enable readers to create proper opinions."
48 Friday, November 20, 1970
—
In Washington, State Department
spokesman Robert J. McCloskey
said the U.S. "did not necessarily
expect" an explanation from the
Soviet Union concerning the seiz-
ure of Rigerman. He said that
pending a U.S. decision on Riger-
man's claim, the matter was one
between the Soviet Union and a
Soviet citizen.
McCloskey said the claim was al-
ready in Washington but couldn't
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS say when it 'reached there or how
The Jewish Agency reported its debt had increased $56,000,000
in less than five years.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews marked its 200th anniversary.
Yaacov Cahan, Hebrew poet whose song "In Blood and Fire, Judea
Fell" became the Hashomer theme, died in Tel Aviv at 79.
Israel's Religious Party, angered by Premier David Ben-Gurion's
reported recommendation of "separation of church and state," warned
of "grave consequences."
The Joint Commission on Social Action of the United Synagogue
of America, the Rabbinical Assembly of America and the National
Women's League urged the abolition of the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, which it said had launched a "completely
unjustifiable assault on religious liberty" in making charges against
the National Council of Churches.
Israeli secondary-school teachers struck over "foot-dragging" on
their pay-raise demands.
To permit Dr. Robert Servatius, a German, to defend Adolf Rich-
mann, the Knesset passed an amendment to the Advocates Ordinance,
under which non-Israeli Bar members were barred from court.
Dr. Morris Tepper, American scientist born in Palestine, was
credited with developing and launching the Tiros II meteorological
satellite.