Six New York area Congressmen yesterday launched a year-long program of daily protests organized by the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry. Standing in front of the offices of Aeroflot, the Soviet national airline, Frederick Richmond, Theodore Weiss, Charles Rangel, Benjamin Rosenthal and Joseph Addabbo and Hamilton Fish, participated in the lighting of the Ner Tamid (Eternal Flame), symbolizing New Yorkers’ unflagging commitment to the cause of freeing Soviet Jews.
For the next year, “six or more demonstrators representing a church, synagogue, school or community organization will demonstrate each business day at noon in front of the Aeroflot offices to constantly remind the Soviets we will not rest until all Soviet Jews are free,” proclaimed Bronx Borough President Robert Abrams, Conference chairman.
The legislators, as well as the six vigil participants, who will demonstrate each business day over the next year, “symbolize the six million victims of the Nazi Final Solution and our firm commitment to the three million Soviet Jews who comprise the largest surviving national group of East European Jews,” Abrams noted.
At each “Freedom Vigil,” participants will hold signs calling for free emigration and freedom of religious and cultural expression for Soviet Jews. They will also distribute materials, collect signatures on petitions, and ask passersby to correspond with Soviet Jewish activists. The Ner Tamid participants will comprise an ever-ready core group for instant reaction to breaking developments in the Soviet Union such as the recent beatings, arrests and interrogations of Soviet Jewish activists in recent months, Abrams said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
