Concern Over USSR Jewry's Plight Echoes
Internationally; Protests Keep Mounting

WASHINGTON (JTA) — More
than 200 Jewish and non-Jewish
youths, most of them students
from area universities, staged an
all-night vigil at the reflecting pool
directly opposite the Lincoln Me-
morial that began 10 p.m. Satur-
day night and ended at 6 a.m.
Sunday.
Dr. Isaac Franck, executive
vice president of the Jewish Com-
munity Council of Greater Wash-
ington which sponsored the peace-
ful vigil, described it as a "con-
tinuing solidarity with the Jews in
the Soviet Union."
Despite the light rain and cold,
participants, including 42 surviv-
ors of Nazi concentration camps,
maintained their ranks through-
out the eight hours singing He-
brew songs, dancing and conduct-
ing evening and morning prayer
services.
More than 2,500 persons demon-
strated Sunday on behalf of Soviet
Jewry in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
More than 1,000 attended a com-
munitywide freedom rally for So-
viet Jews sponsored by the
Washington Heights Committee for
Soviet Jewry, which includes vir-
tually all synagogues and Jewish
organizations in the Washington
Heights-Inwood sections of New
York City.
Rally participants were given
specially printed postcards with
the photo of Ruth Aleksandro-
vich of Riga, whose trial is ex-
pected shortly. Each participant
was asked to send these cards to
Soviet Prosecutor-General Ro-
man Rudenko.
At the Shaare Tikvah, Silim
Goldberger, a young Jewish emi-
gre from Riga, described the plight
of Jews imprisoned in the Soviet
Union.
Some 1,200 persons attending an
"Exodus Rally for Soviet Jews"
April 13 outside Brooklyn Borough
Hall signed petitions calling upon
President Nixon and United Na-
tions Secretary General U Thant
iikt*We.ne with Soviet authori
. ties to permit Soviet Jews to emi
grate to the lands of their choice._
Passersby joined in the petition-
signing and dancing in the streets.
The rally was sponsored by the
Brooklyn Jewiih Community Coun-
cil and the Brooklyn Division of
the American Jewish Congress.
City Comptroller Abraham D.
Beame told the rally, "We cannot
neglect the thousands of Jews who
want to come to Israel from Rus-

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sia. Those people see Israel as
their salvation as well as their
sanctuary. We must not forget
them. We must help their effort
by bringing to the attention of the
world and to the UN the need to
assert their rights."
Borough President Sebastian
Leone called upon the civilized
world to "join with us and with
the Jews in urging Soviet authori-
ties to allow the Jews of the So-
viet Union to choose their own
identity." -
The Rev. Charles H. Straught
Jr., executive director of the
Brooklyn Division of the Council
of Churches of New York, called
upon all Americans — Christians
and Jews—to urge the Soviet lead-
ers to let the Jews leave.
The Rev. Joseph Konrad, repre-
senting the Most Rev. Francis J.
Mugavero, bishop of the Catholic
Diocese of Brooklyn, noting that
every human being has the "right
to- - religious liberty," called upon
the audience to join in a 'call to
Soviet leaders for religious liber-
ties for Soviet Jews.
In Utica, N.Y., Mayor Dominick
N. Assaro issued a call at a Soviet
Jewry rally to "all men of good
will, Jews and non-Jews, through-
out the world, to join in the appeal
to the authorities in the USSR:
Let My People Go." Speaking to
a youthful crowd of several hun-
dred persons, Assaro noted that
several members of his city gov-
ernment were, in their private
roles as citizens, active in the So-
.viet Jewry movement.
More than 500 people gathered
on a sloping hillside directly oppo-
site Kenilsworth, the Soviet Com-
pound in Glen Cove, Long Island,
to participate in a "Ninth :Pay of
Passover for Soviet Jews" rally:
Sponsored by the Student Strug-
gle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and
the Long Island ComMittee for
Soviet Jewry, the rally -focused on
the plight of Ruth. Aleksandrovich.
Glenn Richter, national coordi-
nator of the Student Struggle for
Soviet Jewry, reported that the
telephone has. been disconnected
at the Riga- liffine of Miss Alek-
sandrovich. Richter called the
development. "ominous."
The Soviet, Ovir (visa office) in
Moscow has advised applicants for
emigration that as of next week,
they will need invitations to enter
the office, reliable Jewish sources
reported.
The order was given by one of
the heads of the Ovir, a Gen.
Shoytob. The sources said the an-
nouncement Was designed to in-
timidate Jews into not applying.
• In a related development, sources
reported that the head of the Ovir
in Tchernowitz, the Ukraine, Lt.
Col. Yefremov, told Jews seeking
to go to Israel that they would be
in danger there of being hit by
Soviet -missiles from Egyptian ter-
ritory.
Sources reported the Gait family
of Tchernowitz — husband Ulrich,
wife Rosa and 23-year-old son Mi-
khail — received exit papers last
month but were told by Yefremov,
that Moscow had ordered that
Mikhail not be allowed to leave.
The family contacted the Moscow
authorities, who denied they had
issued any such order. But Yefre-
mov held back their visas.
Only Ulrich Gait was permitted
to leave, and is now in Israel.
Rosa and Mikhail Gait are still in
Tchernowitz, and have gained an
additional problem: They are home-
less, as they gave up their apart-
ment when their applications were
approved last month.
Another group of Jewish immi-
grants from Russia landed in
Tel Aviv Sunday morning, among
them a large number of children.
They came via a chartered El
Al jet from Vienna. One of the
newcomers was David Yaffit,
who was a leader of Betar in
the Soviet Union.

Yaffit spent several years in Sib-
erian labor camps for his Zionist
activities and was granted an exit
visa only recently.
He broke his leg before depar-
ture but insisted on making the
trip. He was removed from the
plane on a stretcher and taken to
a hospital.
Reliable sources reported that
charges of conducting anti-Soviet
propaganda have been filed against
a 45-year-old Jew in Rostov, Lazar
Liubarski, who has been pressing
for a visa to emigrate to Israel.
Several days ago, 70 new immi-
grants arrived by ship at Haifa
from South America. The vessel
also landed 300 Latin American
tourists.
(President Zalman Shazar re-
ceived a cable from eight Vilna
Jews expresing "best wishes to
the Jewish people for a happy
festival of exodus for every one
of us equally." The cable was
signed by Leopold Latzman, Ra-
chel Rabinovitz, Boris Gutman,
Jacob Feitelson, Meir Gefen,
Zalman Zhelinsky, Leonard
Schrakov and Elena Levin.)
In Amsterdam, an American
Jew who was held by police as a
suspect in the bomb attack on the
Soviet Trade Mission. last week
was released Monday, and a police
spokesman told newsmen they
were now "following another trail."
The Jew was identified' as Renee
Wilner, a 35-year-old painter. Sev-
eral of his friends, police reported,
had come -forward during- the past
few days to testify that he is a
quiet sort of person, who would
not, they maintained, • resort to
violence under any circumstances.
(An -anti-Israel rally planned for
April 20 outside the - Soviet Em-
baSsy in The Hague was banned
by the purgermeister, former
Priine Minister Victor Marijnen.
The rally was organized by the
"Palestine Committee" to counter
nationwide Jewish protest rallies
against Soviet treatment of Jews.)
In Caracas, the situation of So-
viet Jewry became an issue at
the conference of the Inter-Par-
liamentary Union.
According to informed reports
later denied by the Soviets, the
Russian delegation threatened to
walk out of the conference if an
Israeli - sponsored supplementary
item on discrimination against So-
viet Jews would be discussed at
the sessions.
An Egyptian resolution on al-
leged denial of rights to Arabs in
the occupied territories met with
no objection from the Russians.
The executive council of the con-
ference recommended that neither
item be placed on the agenda.
The chief Russian delegate called
Israel's charges "a Zionist diver-
sionary act" aimed at directing
the attention of world bodies from
mbie important issues.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union
ended its meeting with approval
ties to collaborate with United Na-
tions. mediator Dr. Gunnar V. Jar-
by a vote of 73-3 a Venezuelan
resolution on the Middle East call-
ing for an end to fighting in that
area. The document asks all par-

Center Workers to Probe
Decision-Making Process

NEW YORK—Who really makes
the decisions for the local Jewish
Community, and how this process
takes place, will be probed in
depth at a two-part session at
the 1971 annual conference of the
Association of Jewish Community
Center Workers at Grossinger's
Hotel, N.Y., June 6-9.
The conference, whose president
is William Kahn, executive vice
president of the St. Louis Jewish
Community Centers Association,
will be part of the annual meeting
of the National Conference of
Jewish Communal Service.

ring in his effort to reach an
agreement based on Resolution 242.
.(Israel was f or c e d to vote
against the proposal because its
preamble included a short para-
graph saying the Union was "also
mindful of United Nations resolu-
tions concerning Jerusalem." The
chief Israeli delegate, Haim Zadok,
said his country was "determined
that the city of Jerusalem should
never be divided.")

Resistance Leader
Postcard Drive
on Behalf of Riga

The Jewish Community Council
is coordinating a local effort in
cooperation with a nationwide pro-
test postcard drive for the release
of 24-year-old Riga resistance
heroine Ruth Alexandrovich.
Miss Alexandrovich is the nurse
who was arrested a week before
her wedding in October 1970 and

whose trial is reportedly imminent.
Responding to the plea of her
mother, "Save my daughter!" the
Center for Russian Jewry and the
Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry
have launched the nation-wide
drive.
The airmail postcards are ad-
dressed to Soviet Procurator-
General Roman A. Rudenko and
show a photo of Ruth which was
smuggled from the USSR. The
back of the card quotes a pass-
age from an essay she wrote
shortly before her arrest: "I
shall never betray my much-suf-
fering people. I shall never be-
tray my most cherished dream—
to live, to work and to die in
Israel."
Council is sending sample cards
to affiliate organizations and en-
couraging, them to duplicate the
cards and distribute them among
members. The Council also has a
limited quantity which can be sup-
plied by calling 962-1880.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, April 23, 1971. -17

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