Marching under the banners of organizations, lodges, schools and synagogues, an estimated 200,000 Jews and non-Jews, Blacks and whites, streamed down Fifth Avenue today in a demonstration of solidarity with Soviet Jewry. The march, organized by the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, culminated at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the United Nations, which was soon filled to its 80,000 persons capacity, causing spectators and marchers to spill into adjacent streets.
The crowd today was the largest ever for a “Solidarity Sunday for Soviet Jewry.” The march here, which ran 30 city blocks, was the largest of many held in cities across the country organized by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and in Canada. Soviet Jewry officials said the demonstrations were being watched closely in Washington, Jerusalem and Moscow as the participants echoed the day’s theme “Their Fight is Our Fight.”
Despite chilly and windy weather, the spirit of the marchers here was warm as they shouted slogans and sang Hebrew songs. The demonstrators were of all ages with many families marching together; parents and their children, and some parents pushing baby carriages along the several-mile route.
The parade began with young demonstrators dressed in Soviet prison costumes. A group representing the Academic Committee on Soviet Jewry dressed in caps and gowns carried pictures of Soviet Jewish scientists and professors who have been denied permission to leave the Soviet Union. Many of the demonstrators carried pictures or the names of Soviet Prisoners of Conscience and other Soviet Jews who have been harassed in the USSR. New York City area Congressmen carried pictures of the POCs each of them had “adopted.”
URGE FREEDOM FOR SYRIAN JEWS
Many marchers shouted the slogan which has almost become the theme of demonstrations for Soviet Jews: “One, two, three, four, open up the iron door; five, six, seven, eight, let our people emigrate.” Banners called for “Freedom Now,” “Let My People Go,” “Don’t Let History Repeat Itself.” Christian clergymen marched under the banner of the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry.
Some of the marchers urged freedom for Syrian Jews, too. A group of youths wore blood-stained Arab kafiyas and nooses and chains to underscore the plight of the Jews in Syria. Some demonstrators carried signs urging support for Israel and others had placards denouncing Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
JACKSON ASSAILS FORD
At Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D.Wash.) accused President Ford of encouraging Soviet bad faith over the emigration of Jews to Israel when the President last Thursday denounced the Jackson Amendment provisions. Jackson declared that when Congress worked out a compromise on the U.S. Trade Act provisions dealing with free emigration, “we did not know whether the Soviet Union would live up to its word.” But, he said, “We thought we could count on the President of the United States to live up to his.”
Ford, in his “State of the World” speech last Thursday, called for legislation eliminating the Jackson-Vanik provisions requiring unharassed emigration by Jews and others in the Soviet Union. Ford “as much as told the Soviets not to bother qualifying under our new law.” Jackson told the cheering crowd. “He encouraged them to believe that their bad faith will be rewarded by further concessions.” Continuing, Jackson declared: “Well, he is wrong. The problem is not in the U.S. trade bill, the problem is in the Soviet Union, and the solution is in the Soviet Union.”
Sen. William E. Brock (D.Tenn.), told the crowd that “there is no need to knuckle under on the Jackson Amendment, or any other matter.” He said the “only question we must face is whether or not our principles have changed, principles which require us to be concerned about our fellow man wherever and whoever he may be.” Brock called for support of Soviet and Syrian Jews and for Israel. “All that Israel asks is an opportunity to choose her own future and to live her own life free from assault. That is little enough, and it deserves our unqualified support.”
SOVIETS BROKE WORD ON EMIGRATION
Other speakers included Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D,Minn,), Governor Hugh Carey, Mayor Abraham Beame and Dr, Viktor Polsky, a noted Soviet Jewish scientist who recently emigrated to Israel. Also present were Batya Tsitlionok and Itta Nashpitz whose sons were sentenced last week to five years in exile.
Stanley Lowell, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, accused the Soviet Union of breaking its word on emigration, and the Ford Administration of doing nothing, Eugene Gold, chairman of the GNY CSJ pledged that “the principles of the Jackson Amendment will be carried through to fruition regardless of any Soviet attempts to avoid them.”
In other actions, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S., making his first statement for a public rally, gave his blessing to “all who labor with such love for all Jews in every place where they reside.”
Terence Cardinal Cooke, Archbishop of the Diocese of New York, said that “In this Holy Year of renewal and reconciliation, it is fitting that we should join together with our Jewish friends and neighbors in behalf of Soviet Jews and other persons who are denied their human rights in the Soviet Union….Christians and Jews both share the exodus experience and we are both committed to the struggle for physical and spiritual liberation.” Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton read a statement of support from New York’s Black community.
JDL STAGES PASSIVE RESISTANCE RALLY
Several hundred members of the Jewish Defense League, which had labeled today’s march a “picnic” organized by the Jewish establishment, first pushed through the crowd several blocks from Dag Hammarskjold Plaza and waited to hear Jackson speak. They then sat down in the middle of Second Avenue, a block away from the Plaza, when police refused to allow them to go to First Avenue and hold a sit-down demonstration in front of the United States Mission to the UN. Police said there were too many to allow in front of the U.S. Mission.
JDL speakers said their demonstration was to oppose the Ford-Kissinger policy toward Israel and detente with the Soviet Union. Police did not attempt to break up the JDL’s passive resistance sit-down which tied up traffic along Second Avenue Some of them dispersed, but others allowed themselves to be arrested peacefully.
Ten Arabs representing the Association for Arab-American Friendship, holding a counter-demonstration, were isolated by police at the Isaiah Wall several blocks from the Plaza crowd. Police, lining the route of the march, were under orders not to wear helmets or carry night sticks. There were no incidents along the official line of march.
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