Israel went silent at 10 o’clock this morning as a two-minute blast on sirens in every city, town and village brought traffic and all other activities to a halt in a national gesture of protest against the sentences imposed on Jews in Leningrad. The gesture had been called for by Histadrut, Israel’s Labor Federation. Histadrut’s secretary general, Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, visited the Finnish Embassy in Tel Aviv this morning with a note of protest to Moscow on behalf of the union’s million members. Finland handles Soviet affairs in Israel. Various organizations in Israel affiliated with world bodies continued to urge the government to intervene with Soviet authorities on behalf of the Leningrad defendants.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
