Soviet Jewry Group to Mobilize Governmental, Public Opinion Against New Trial

With another Leningrad trial of “anti-Soviet” Jews due to open tomorrow or Wednesday, the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry resolved today to mobilize governmental and public opinion against the proceedings as it did last December. The rallying cry, the Conference decided here today, will be: “Release the prisoners. No more trials.” The Conference plans a telephone and telegram campaign to spark Jewish community organizations and individual Jews into action, as well as to impress the urgency of the cause upon President Nixon, the State Department, United Nations Ambassador George Bush, district attorneys and the media. The organizations represented in the AJCSJ will take part in a rally tomorrow afternoon to be sponsored by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. The participants will march from the Soviet Mission to UN headquarters, almost two miles. The women’s organizations are mobilizing their members for action too. Mrs. Rivka Aleksandrovich, the mother of Riga prisoner Ruth Aleksandrovich, is on her way to the United States–from Israel by way of London–to personalize the issue. Former Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg has agreed to telephone Soviet Prosecutor General Roman A. Rudenko in Moscow, but arrangements for this move have not yet been completed.

Meanwhile, Jewish sources reported that the list of this week’s Leningrad defendants has been changed since last Friday. David Iserovich Chernoglaz and Anatoly Moyseyevich Goldfeld have reportedly been returned to jail, with Mikhail Koreblit and Viktor Shtilbans taking their places in the dock. The defendants this week will thus be exactly the same as at the Leningrad trial that opened Jan. 6 and closed without explanation after 10 minutes. The other seven defendants now, as then, are Viktor David Boguslavsky, Grigory Ilya (Hillel) Butman. Solomon (Shlomo) Dreizner, Lassal Kaminsky, Lev Leibovich Korenblit (brother of Mikhail). Vladimor Osherovich Mogilever and Lev Naumovich Yagman. There was no immediate explanation for the sudden change in defendants.