On the eve of Thanksgiving, lovers of liberty and th., American
tradition for justice and fair play give thanks for the freedoms that
make Americans the defenders of justice and the upholders of the
banner of liberty and true democracy.
To be observed in a matter of days simultaneously with the
commencement of the Festival of Lights, the Jews of America are able
to observe the triumphs of the Maccabees together with those of the
American pioneers who established the foundation for human princi-
ples and the inalienable rights of all men to a just share in the world's
bounties.
EDITORIAL.
Thanksgiving
For the Glory
of Free U.S.
The U.S. leadership in effecting the humane ideals makes the cur-
rent Thanksgiving Day an especially supreme occasion for satisfaction
for American Jews as co-inheritors and adherents to the great princi-
ples of justice for all.
THE JEWISH NEWS
The Bigotries
Against Jews at
the UN and the
Emerging
Obligations
Commentary
Page 2
VOL. LXVIII, No. 11
Thanksgiving symbolizes the highest ideals that were promul-
gated by the Prophets of Israel. They are the legacy of mankind, defy-
ing such iniquities as are in evidence at the UN. They reassert the
rights of all peoples to unhindered freedoms wherever they may live.
A Weekly Review
9
f Jewish Events
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Adult Jewish
Education's
Long History
Stalin's Bias
Against Zionism
Recalled
Reviews, Page 64
S10.00 Per Year ; This Issue 30c
November 21, 1975
Amnesty International Exposes
USSR Abuse of Jewish Prisoners
Liberals Propagate:
Reject Bigotry, Defy
Anti-Semitic Backers
"Never again" as a slogan of non-submis-
sion to Genocide assumes new affirmations in
many Jewish ranks with a "Never Forget" dec-
laration in dealing with the savagery that took
control of the United Nations.
As an answer to the brutalized majority
whose actions are aimed at Israel's destruction,
the ranks of the justice-seeking forces are being
inundated with warnings to tourists to treat
countries like Mexico and Brazil with refusals
to include them in plans for travel and tourism.
Expressing gratitude to the chief U.S. dele-
gate to the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, to his
associate, William Mitchell, and other defend-
ers of fair play in the world organization which
has become terrorized by recent actions, Jewish
groups are calling upon Americans to continue
the protests against the enemies of the United
States and Israel.
Zionist and pro-Israel groups are joining
in a campaign for mass communications to
members of Congress commending them for
their rejections of bigotry. The House of Rep-
resentatives and the Senate are being urged
to continue the task of reassessing the U.S.
role in the UN. The anti-Israel acts by
UNESCO, FAO, ILO and other UN agencies
are especially assailed, and Congress, the
State Department and the White House are
asked not to condone the villifying effects of
anti-Israel and anti-Zionist steps which have
led to the transformation of the UN into
headquarters for anti-Semitism.
"Wear the Zionist badge with honor" is an
emphatic call to all Jews to enroll in Zionist
ranks as a major declaration of solidarity with
the Jewish state whose very existence is men-
(Continued on Page 12)
LONDON (JTA) — A damning report by Amnesty International on conditions in Soviet prisons and forced labor
camps where at least 10,000 political and religious dissenters, including Jewish "prisoners of conscience" are currently
incarcerated, confirms charges that "Jewish prisoners are frequently singled out for special abuse" and that prison
authorities deliberately provoke anti-Semitic acts against them by non-Jewish inmates.
The 154-page illustrated report titled "Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR," was released in London Monday and
published simultaneously in Dutch, German, French and Swedish. Amnesty International is a London-based nonsec-
tarian organization that monitors the condition of political prisoners all over the world.
The report said that conditions in Soviet penal institutions "not only violate international standards for the
treatment of prisoners, but fail to achieve the standards established in parts of domestic (Soviet) corrective labor
legislation and theory." The report urged the Soviet authorities to undertake a program of penal reform and
warns that as long as the day-to-day working of the Soviet penal system is treated as a state secret, it will
continue to "generate suspicion and mistrust, certainly abroad and to some extent within the Soviet Union
itself."
The study of Soviet penal conditions by Amnesty International does not single out the plight of Jewish prisoners
or that of any other minority group. But the names of many well-known Jewish activists imprisoned because of their
persistent quest for exit visas app,ear throughout the report.
These include Eduard Kuznetsov, Alexander Feldman, Alexander Fainberg, Semyon Gluzman, Yona Kolchinsky,
Vladimir Bukovsky and Vladimir Gershuni. Feldman is the subject of one of the "profiles" of five typical Soviet
political or religious prisoners. He was sentenced to a 3 1/2 year term in a labor camp after applying for a visa.
Romanian Chief Rabbi
Accuses Bishop Trifa
NEW YORK — Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen of Romania,
in the U.S. this week for a speaking engagement, gave a
deposition to the Justice Department's Immigration and
Naturalization Service about Valerian D. Trifa, archbishop
of the Romanian orthodox church in the U.S., whose U.S.
citizenship the Federal government is trying to revoke.
Rabbi Rosen told a news conference that he first raised
the question of Trifa's citizenship with the Justice Depart-
ment in 1961, and said that for Romanian Jews there is no
question that "Trifa is a killer of Jews."
The Federal case against Trifa, of Grass Lake,
Mich., is currently pending in Federal District Court in
Detroit, before Federal Judge Cornelia Kennedy. A pre-
liminary hearing was held last month and further hear-
ings are expected in December.
Trifa is accused of lying and concealing his involvement
with the fascist Romanian Iron Guard student organization
and his involvement in a 1941 pogrom in Romania.
The report quotes extensively from a statement by a
group of Jewish prisoners in Perm. They charged, "The
camp authorities inculcate nationalistic conflicts and agi-
tate other inmates against Jews. KGB (secret police) offi-
cers stress in their conversations with non-Jewish inmates
that all nationalities of the USSR must take a stand
against Jews, particularly in labor camps," the Amnesty
International report said.
It quoted the Jewish prisoners' charge that "The
(camp) administration provoked anti-Jewish incidents,
utilized informers and spies, used false witnesses in or-
der to be able to impose additional punishment on Jews.
Inmates who have had contact with Jews are summoned
for discussions during which anti-Semitic sentiments
are expressed and they are told that protests against the
arbitrariness in camp rules are only profitable to the
Zionists . . .
The Jews are forbidden to practice their religious
traditions . . . forbidden to congregate even for a few
minutes .
(Continued on Page 5)
A Bicentennial Feature
Gershom Mendes Seixas and New York's Jewish Exodus
By MORRIS U. SCHAPPES
Editor, Jewish Currents
New York in 1776 was a hotbed of loyalism to "the sacred person,
Crown and dignity" of the tyrannical George III. July 4, 1776 even the New
York delegation to the Continental Congress refrained from voting for the
Declaration of Independence. The British and Hessian troops were beating
Washington's army and were about to capture New York.
In that context the members of Cong. Shearith Israel, most of whom
were Ashkenazi although the Congregation used the Sephardic ritual, had
to make a decision: to stay and collaborate with the British occupation—or
to go into voluntary exile until the British were forced to evacuate, which
they were not to do until 1783.
The large majority opted for exile; on Aug. 22, only five days before
Washington's army withdrew from the city, most of the Jews left their
homes with their families and movables, and Gershom Seixas (pro-
nounced Saishus), his wife, Elkaleh, and their three-week-old son,
Isaac (born July 30, died in infancy), took the Torah and ritual objects
as well as their household effects and left New York, closing the
synagogue.
Undoubtedly the patriotic and revolutionary views of the hazzan and
spiritual leader Seixas, as well as those of the president of the Congrega-
tion Solomon Simpson, molded that historic decision. Seixas, the first na-
tive American Jewish hazzan (he was not an ordained rabbi), took the post
of hazzan in 1768 arid held it, except for the period of the War, until he died
in 1816.
Born in New York, the fourth of eight children of Isaac, a Sephardi,
and Rachel, an Ashkenazi, Gershom on Sept. 6, 1775 married Elkaleh
Cohen (1749-1785), an Ashkenazi, who bore him four children before s:ie
died.
(Continued on Page 7)