Report New Trial Date Set for Riga Jews; Continued Arrests, Harassment of Others

Reports of a new trial date of Soviet Jews in Riga, increased harassment of Soviet Jews and the murder of a Soviet Jew were published here in Undercover, a publication of the Soviet Jewry Committee of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington. According to the reports, the trial of Riga Jews, which had been scheduled for April, has been reset for May 24. Harassment and arrests of Soviet Jews who applied for exit permits to emigrate to Israel have continued unabatedly, Undercover reported. Yefim Sevela, the Moscow Jewish movie director, has been placed under surveillance of Soviet police and subjected to official harassment ever since he submitted a request to the authorities for an exit permit to Israel. On April 16 he was informed that his case would be reviewed. Informed sources have reported that members of the film industry in the United States and other Western countries are seeking to intercede with the Soviet authorities on his behalf. At the same time, it was disclosed that Lazar Liubarski, 45, whose address was given as 11 Prospect Stacikx, Rostov, has been placed under arrest. He is charged with anti-Soviet propaganda following his request for an exit visa to Israel. A Polish student, Marina Kansburg of Cracow, has been dismissed from the Cracow University where she was a fourth year student of philology, according to Underground. Her expulsion followed her request to the university administration for a character reference which, she had explained, had been required by Ovir in connection with her application for an emigration visa to Israel. The murder of a Soviet Jewish hatmaker of Gudauta, a town in the Republic of Georgia, was also reported by Undercover. Jewish sources said they feared that Shalom Khakmishvili, had been the victim of an anti-Semitic attack. Undercover also reported that a prayer service on the first day of Passover, held in a private home in Lvov, was disrupted by a police detachment under the command of a lieutenant which entered the home and requested the names of all those present. Using abusive language and threats, they then forcibly dispersed the 40 congregants. The last remaining synagogue in Lvov, a town containing 30,000 Jews, was closed down in 1963.