Protests Mount Against Trial
of the seven or more Jews among their utmost to pressure Soviet au-
(Comtkosed from Page 1)
riot a block away from the So- the defendants in Leningrad have thorities to end their policy of re-
viet .idled Nations Mission Sum- been released, presumably after pression against the Jews.
Mrs. Meir assailed the "fake
day. Eye-witnesses said pollee pleading guilty to the hijack
trial" in Leningrad which, she de-
used dais on persons trying to charges.
break Ihrourgh barriers RN feet
Shapiro cited statements from clared, had only one aim, to fright.
away front the mission building. Soviet authorities but they contain- en and discredit Jews in Russia.
Twelve persons were arrested ed no reasons for the purported She warned that this "outrageous
and ffve others were hospitalised.
leniency after the defendants trial" could be the forerunner of
Several policemen were Inhered. allegedly confessed that they were "terrible consequencse" for the
At one point about 100 Polish working for "international Zion- 3,500,000 Jews in Russia.
Israel Radio accused the offi-
protestors demonstrating at the ism." The confessions were said
cial Soviet news agency Tass of
mission against the Gomulka re- to have been made by three of the
deliberately feeding It false in-
gime in Warsaw, mingled with the defendants under persuasion by
Jewish demonstrators and shouted, Maj. Dymshitz. A later report by formation on the trial in Lenin-
Shapiro, supported by reports in grad. According to a spokesman
"We're with you."
for the government-owned sta-
Observers at the scene said the the London press, said the persons
rioting was due to the unruly be- released were Dymshitz's wife and tion, a phone call was put
two
teen-aged
daughters
and
the
through to Tass in Moscow to try
havior by members of the Jewish
Defense League who were among pregnant woman. The four women to elicit fresh information on the
trial which is being conducted
several thousand persons joining were not in the dock at Leningrad
the march at its end, near the So- but are presumed to have been in secret.
viet Mission headquarters, and at- among the 34 Jews arrested and
A Tass editor allegedly told the
tempted to take it over: The JDL held incommunicado since last Israeli news editor, "The trial is
members reportedly incited the June. Earlier reports said that the over. We have published this
demonstrators to break through wives of several defendants had through all our channels. But we
police lines. By contrast, the march been offered freedom to emigrate do not yet know what the verdicts
and an earlier rally on behalf of to Israel without their husbands and sentences are." This report
Soviet Jewry in front of the New but rejected it. One unconfirmed was broadcast by Israel Radio.
York Public Library at 42nd Street report said Mrs. Dymshitz had re- When no confirmation appeared
and Fifth Ave. was orderly. It considered.
from other sources, the radio staff
was organized jointly by the Amer-
The Associated Press reported checked with Western news agen-
kan Jewish Conference on Soviet from Moscow that in a develop- cies and discovered that the Tass
Jewry and the Conference of ment "very favorable" to the 11 information was false. Israelis
Presidents of Major American on trial in Leningrad, the prose- believe Tass gave the Israeli radio
Jewish Organizations, umbrella cution agreed to drop the matter false information in order to calm
groups encompassing about 75 of firearms that were to have been "the rising tide of public wrath
local and national Jewish organiza- used in the alleged hijacking. A and indignation" against the trial.
tions.
home-made pistol and a pair of
Israeli relatives of accused So-
Leaders of the massive protest brass knuckles were reportedly viet Jews have received informa-
demonstration Sunday rejected the found on the accused when they tion by telephone indicating that
reported guilty pleas of defendants were arrested at Smolny Airport more than one trial is under way
on trial in Leningrad.
last June.
in the Soviet Union involving Jews
"Forced confessions are not un-
The UPI reported that the Lenin- accused of hijack attempts and
usual in the USSR," Rabbi Hers- grad trial was attended by 100 other offenses. According to a
chel Schaefer, chairman of the relatives and friends of the de- telephone call from Riga, 23-year-
American Jewish Conference on fendants. But Shmuel Zalmanson, old Bosis Maftsir, a photographer,
Soviet Jewry, and Dr. William father of three of the defendants was sentenced to five years' im-
Wexler. chairman of the Confer- from Riga, said he was barred prisonment at a secret trial in
ence of Presidents of Major Amer- from the courtroom after traveling Riga. A call received by a recent
ican Jewish Organizations, said in to Leningrad. He made that state- immigrant from Russia in Haifa
a joint statement.
ment in a telephone call from from a Jewish friend in Moscow
Mrs. Jacob Malk, wife of the Leningrad Friday to a brother in claimed that another Jew, Grische
USSR's permanent representa-
Israel. According to some in- Feigin of Riga, was forcibly re-
tive to the United Nations, was formants in Moscow, the Leningrad moved from his home on Friday
asked by the American Jewish
trail would wind up on Christmas and taken to a mental institution.
Congress National Women's Divi- day, today. Press reports here said Maftsir was said to have been on
sion to help obtain the release that Maj. Dymshitz told the Lenin- trial in connection with the alleged
of Soviet Jews brought to trial grad court in the course of his hijack plot. His arrest, however,
in Leningrad and of others still confession that he plotted to hijack reportedly took place last Aug. 4.
impel-ensued there and in Riga.
a Soviet airliner in order to draw He was said to have been ac-
They carried to the Soviet diplo- world attention to anti-Semitism in cused of "participation in a Zion-
mat's wife a letter from the wives, the Soviet Union.
ist plot and distribution of anti-
mothers and sisters of the arrested
U.S. Congressman Joshua Eil- Soviet material."
Soviet Jews addressed to the Soviet
berg. Democrat of Pennsylvania,
Maftsir was a signatory of peti-
prosecutor-general, and a gift from urged the administration to speak
the AJC's women's division of a out against the Leningrad trial of tions to Soviet authorities demand-
ing the right to emigrate to Israel.
tiny oil lamp from Israel commem-
Jews. President Nixon and Secre-
orating Hanuka and its traditional tary of State William P. Rogers His home was searched at the time
of his arrest and Hebrew books
association with human freedom.
should "denounce the trials and were seized, according to the re-
Several thousand Frenchmen. demand their cancellation
in the port.
Jews and non-Jews, marched name of justice and humanity,"
Anger boiled over In Israel
through the streets of Paris Mon-
Eilberg, a member of the House
day night in a protest demonstra- Judiciary Committee, declared. over the Leningrad trial, coupled
with anxiety for the fate of the
tion against the Leningrad trial "The case is simple," he explained.
and the repression of Soviet Jewry. "A United States protest would Jewish defendants. Petitions de-
manding an end to the trial and
Police were out in force but no in- further focus the world's attention
release of the prisoners poured
cidents occurred. The demonstra- on these trials."
into the Finnish Embassy here.
tors assembled at Paris' main
Eilberg, who visited Jewish Finland has handled Soviet af-
synagogue on the Rue de La Vie-
toire, where France's Chief Rabbi leaders in Moscow and Kiev last fairs in Israel since Moscow
year,
charged that the administra-
severed diplomatic relations dur-
Jacob Kaplan offered prayers for
tion and the State Department ing the 1967 Arab-Israel war.
the Leningrad defendants.
Baron Hie de Rothschild, presi- "have not lifted a pencil or raised
One of the petitions was signed
dent of the Jewish Comsistoire, the United States' voice above a by 12,000 persons in Haifa. Copies
led the marchers to the Square whisper in protest to these trials." were sent to the United Nations
The Bnai Israel Synagogue in Human Rights Commission. An-
de in Termite where they dis-
persed peacefully after calling on Washington "adopted" the Lenin- other petition was delivered by the
the Soviet government to end grad Synagogue and sent it a large Betar youth movement which
the trials of Jews and permit brass Hanuka menora as a sym- demonstrated in front of the em-
bol of identification with that bassy. Yeroham Meshel, acting
free emigration.
In Marseilles and Lyon, about Russian congregation. Letters in secretary general of Histadrut,
2.001` demonstrators m a rched the Russian and Yiddish languages cabled the International Federa-
through the center of town to pro- also were sent to the Leningrad tion of Free-Trade Unions a re-
synagogue for delivery prior to quest to intercede with Soviet au-
test the Leningrad trial.
Smaller demonstrations were re- the Feast of Lights.
thorities on behalf of the Leningrad
ported in Nice and Bordeaux.
SAN Join Hunger Strikers
defendants. A similar appeal was
Prime Minister Jacques Chaban- at Wailing Wall; Israel Fast
sent by the Israeli Editors Asso-
Delman and several other promi- Continues Until Trial Ends
ciation to the . World Federation of
nent Frenchmen have promised to
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Two dozen Periodical Editors. -
intervene personally with the Russian immigrants who have been
Bar-Ilan University changed its
Kremlin on behalf of the 11 Lenin- fasting at the Wailing Wall since name for one day to "The Silent
grad trial defendants.
the Leningrad Trial began were Jews University" in a gesture of
According to some knowledgeable joined Sunday by some 5,000 solidarity with Soviet Jewry.
sources, the trial in Leningrad and people from many part of Israel
In Copenhagen, 1,000 people at-
those presumably to come are in- to demonstrate their solidarity tended a mass meeting at the - Jew-
tended to intimidate not only Jews with the Jews of the Soviet Union. ish Community Center here to ex-
but other Soviet minorities growing
The hunger strikers also were press solidarity with Russian Jews
rebellious under Moscow's rule. An joined by Premier Golda Meir and and to protest the trial. A resolu-
example of conflicting reports the entire cabinet, which adjourned tion was adopted at the rally
emanating from the Soviet Union its weekly meeting at noon. Knes- pledging Danish Jewry to do what-
was a dispatch filed by United set members, mayors and heads ever it can to alleviate the plight
Press International correspondent of workers' councils addressed the of Jews in the Soviet Union.
Bleary Shapiro in Moscow that four demonstration and pledged to do
In London, Czech Jews who
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
16 — Friday, December 25, 1970
found refuge in Britain, after
the Soviet invasion and occupation
of their country in 1968, have been
threatened with criminal charges
by the Prague government and
fear that their families may be
harassed and their property con-
fiscated, according to the Council
of Jews from Czechoslovakia.
A council spokesman told the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency that
refugees here and in other Western
European countries have been
notified by the Czech embassies
that "criminal charges" were be-
ing prepared against them. The
spokesman said they were notified
at the same time that they could
obtain legal advice from the Legal
Advice Bureau in Prague on pay-
ment of a $144 fee in foreign cur-
rency. According to the spokesman,
the notification and notices appear-
ing in the Czech press made It
clear that failure to appoint legal
counsel would compel the Czech
authorities to approach the refu-
gees' relatives for payment which
might lead to confiscation of the
property of the absentees.
.
•
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