Several dozen Jewish youths and adults gathered here outside an international chess tournament being held at Convention Center, in which three Russians are entered, to protest the Soviet Union’s discriminatory cultural, religious and emigration policies against Jewish citizens. The protest, organized by the local chapter of Masadah, the Zionist Organization of America youth movement, in cooperation with the San Antonio ZOA District, was directed at the participation of former world champion Tigrn Petrosian and grand masters Anatoly Karpov and Paul Keres in the 26-day, $10,000 chess tournament that opened Sunday.
Although the demonstrators were unable to confront the Russian chess players when they entered the tournament, a delegation of Masadah youths left a letter of protest for them at the Palacio del Rio Hotel where they were staying. Dan Pankowsky, 16-year-old president of the Masadah chapter, said the protest was aimed ” neither at the chess tournament nor at its promotors,” but “solely at the Russians whom we seek to challenge and confront on their government employer’s anti-Semitic policies.”
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