Eight Jewish Students Take over Tass Office; Charged with Unlawful Entry

Eight area Jewish students entered the offices of Tass, the Soviet news agency on Friday and chained themselves to each other in protest against the treatment of Soviet Jews. The five young men and three young women were removed forcibly by the police and dragged from the premises as they shouted “Let my people go” and “Help the Jews in Russia.” Their removal from the offices on the second floor of the National Press Building was witnessed by a score of newsmen, security officers and Soviet Embassy officials. A spokesman for the demonstrators said they were members of the Washington Committee for the Release of Captive Soviet Jewry and that they had been admitted to the Tass offices after knocking on the door. They chained themselves together after hanging a red banner adorned with hammer-and-sickle and swastika out the window. No injuries were reported. The students’ spokesman, Dr. William G. Perl, a clinical psychologist of College Park, Md., said the demonstration was staged to protest the scheduled opening in Leningrad of “show trials” of Jews. He identified the demonstrators as Sheldon Zeller and Devorah (Divi) Faber of the University of Maryland and Eve Berger, Sue Parke, Mark Rosenbaum, Feri Gore, Gil Genn and Mark Brand of American University here. They were charged with unlawful entry and failure to leave the premises.

One of the observers was Vladislav Shimanovsky, a Soviet political attache. As the students chanted “One, two three, four, open up the prison door/ five six, sever, eight, open up the prison gate,” he told newsmen “It would be inhuman to send people to a country that is in a state of war,” alluding to Israel. He called the demonstration “part of a vicious campaign by certain (American) circles” and “not just an accident.” The Soviet attache insisted that such demonstrations “can only hurt, not help, the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union.” Dr. Perl said the demonstration was staged “to attract the journalistic profession” to the plight of Soviet Jews. He said 80,400 Soviet Jewish families had applied for emigration permission. But Mr. Shimanovsky declared: “Most Jews do not want to leave the Soviet Union. They have higher salaries and better education.” Dr. Perl interjected that “This is old Nazi propaganda.”