The visiting Soviet Berioska Dance Company was last night greeted by a demonstration of 700 Jewish students protesting on behalf of Soviet Jewry. The protest here followed a demonstration three weeks ago in Sydney when the Russian dancers arrived on a national concert tour.
The Australian Union of Jewish Students and the Australian Campaign for Soviet Jewry are arranging demonstrations during the tour in every capital city to draw attention to the lack of cultural freedom in the Soviet Union and the recent increase in arrests of Soviet Jews.
A spokesman for the demonstrators, Rabbi Ellis Sultanik, said the demonstrations were particularly important at a time when an Australian parliamentary committee was preparing to hold hearings on the problems of human rights in the Soviet Union. The hearings, due to commence in October, are expected to include personal testimony from leading Jewish and non-Jewish dissidents who have left the Soviet Union in recent years.
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.
