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Jewish Activists to Hold ‘people’s Seder’ to Protest Berrigan Trial

March 27, 1972
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A coalition of Jewish activists in N.Y., Boston, Wash, and Phila. announced today it would sponsor a “People’s Seder” Saturday evening April 1 in Reservoir Park in Harrisburg, Pa., to protest against the federal government’s trial in the Berrigan conspiracy case.

The coalition said that on March 29, Passover eve, members would join with representatives of other religious groups to encircle the federal building, the site of the trial, in “a non-violent act of civil disobedience.” Christian groups have already announced plans for a mass demonstration in Harrisburg on April 1 in support of the Rev. Philip Berrigan and six other defendants accused of a plot to blow up heating tunnels in federal buildings in Washington and to kidnap Dr. Henry Kissinger, the President’s advisor on national security affairs.

The coalition said there was a concerted effort to involve rabbis and other committed Jews “along with our Christian counterparts” for an occasion “when we, as Jews, will speak for freedom and justice.” The coalition includes Network, an umbrella group for some 240 Jewish activist associations; the Radical Zionist Alliance; the New York Chavurah and the Brooklyn Bridge; the Chavurat Sholom and Concerned Jewish Students in Boston; Fabrengen in Washington; and the Radical Jewish Community in Philadelphia.

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