ADL to Hold Soviet Jewry Exhibit Next Week; Seen As Pattern for Nationwide Exhibits

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith announced yesterday that it has invited several hundred communal leaders from the metropolitan area to attend a private exhibition dealing with the plight of Soviet Jewry, to be held at ADL headquarters here next Monday and Tuesday. The exhibition consists of rare historical documents and photographs tracing the persistence of Russian Jews in maintaining their Jewish heritage during the past 50 years of Soviet repression. The show also includes taped interviews with Soviet Jewish emigres arriving in Israel, as well as a half-hour CBS documentary on the present condition of the Jews in Russia. The exhibition, a “pilot” project which ADL hopes will set a pattern for future similar showings throughout the U.S., was supposed to have opened to the public last night. Several hours after the ADL announced its plans to hold the exhibit “by invitation only” next week, more than two dozen picketers peacefully demonstrated in the rain outside the ADL headquarters. They protested postponement of the exhibit and made the demands which they had hoped to non-violently impress upon those originally planning to attend the exhibit last night.

The ADL postponed the show, citing its fear that the Jewish Liberation Project, a Socialist-Zionist young adult organization, and the Jewish Defense League would disrupt it. Spokesmen for both groups denied the charge. The picketers, including JLP members, a few individual JDL members as well as people active in the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, frequently chanted and sang in both Hebrew and English as they marched in a circle in front of the building’s entrance, demanding that ADL make the cause of Soviet Jewry a “top priority” issue; stop spying on other Jews and turning their names over to the FBI; and stop smearing radical health groups.