Some 25 Jewish leaders have been sentenced in Rumania to long prison terms, including three to life imprisonment, following their conviction on charges of illegal Zionist activity and maintaining contact with the Israel legation in Bucharest, it was reported here today.
World Jewish Congress sources last night said that in all some 40 Jews, including six women, were indicted in the trials which are still continuing. This trial is the fifth mass trial involving over 150 leaders of the Rumanian Jewish community, many of whom have been in prisons for the past four years, the WJC said.
Among the defendants in the current trial, it was revealed, are: Dr. Cornel Jancu, deputy chairman of the World Federation of General Zionists; Dr. Bernard Rohrlich, former chairman of the Zionist Federation of Rumania; Leon Itzcar, former chairman of the Jewish National Fund in Rumania; Dr. Theodor Loewenstein, well-known Jewish historian; and Dan Eshanu, chairman of the now dissolved Poale Zion-Labor Zionist party.
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