Rallies in protest against the ant-Jewish discriminations in the Soviet Union will be held simultaneously in 16 major American cities, December 26, it was announced here today by the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, According to the organization, more than 25,000 persons are expected to participate in Chanukah candle-lighting ceremonies that evening, symbolizing the theme “from darkness to light” and calling on the USSR to grant to Soviet Jewry the same rights enjoyed by all other national minorities in the Soviet Union.
The rallies will include protests in New York City; Newark, N.J., San Jose, Calif., Baltimore, Camden, N.J., San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Norfolk, Va., Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, Trenton, N.J. and Waterbury, Conn.
Included in the ceremonies will be the carrying of 800 eight-day wax candles, symbolizing freedom for Soviet Jews; eight large torches for the festival of Chanukah as a holiday of rededication to freedom of religion; and the “Torch for Soviet Jewry which originally was kindled by the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry at the Eternal Light Rally in Lafayette Park, opposite the White House, in Washington, in September, 1965.
An anti-Israel Arab propaganda organization is conducting a nationwide letter, telephone and telegram campaign to get “one million American Arabs to cover their Christmas trees with black “to protest Israeli occupation of Bethlehem and the rest of the Holy Land, The campaign was announced by Dr. M.T, Mehdi, secretary-general of the “Action Committee on American-Arab Relations, “an organization that makes its headquarters here, There was no indication of where the “one million American Arabs, presumably all Christians, are located.
The U.S. Supreme Court is under increasing pressure to rule on the thorny constitutional problem of government aid to church and synagogue schools involving hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a year-end survey of church-state litigation announced here by the American Jewish Congress.
The survey listed 30 cases now pending in state and federal courts, 17 of them on the issue of whether tax-raised funds may be used in support of religiously-affiliated schools. Seven of these cases have been taken to the Supreme Court in recent months, the report noted. Three have been rejected, three are pending, and one has been accepted by the court on the issue of rights of the tax payer to challenge the constitutionality of public grants to religious schools.
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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.
