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Major U.S. Jews Groups Outraged at Execution of Iranian Jew

August 4, 1980
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Five major American Jewish organizations issued a statement here declaring that they are “outraged and filled with revulsion at the execution” in Iran last Thursday “of still another prominent Jew, Avraham Boruchim, on false charges of spying for Israel. He thus joins many other innocent victims arrested and executed on absurd charges.” The statement also said, “A sinister pattern appears to be emerging whereby the revolutionary authorities add a Jew to the list whenever a new wave of executions is scheduled.”

Continuing, the statement, issued jointly by the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Deformation League of B’nai B’rith, and the World Jewish Congress declared that a regime that makes Zionism a capital offense “is a lawless regime that violates all principles of justice and human rights, including the tenets of Islamic law. Virtually every Iranian Jew has relatives in Israel. To regard the normal family connections of Jews with Israel as a crime makes a mockery of the pledges in the Islamic Republic’s constitution that Jews will be accorded full rights as a recognized religious minority, among other such communities.”

The five organizations said “We join the Boruchim family in mourning the death of Avraham. We also pray and urge that his aged father, Izoak, who still languishes in prison, will be speedily released.”

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