About 12,000 New York Jewish youths have marched through the streets of midtown Manhattan in a Passover youth protest on behalf of Soviet Jewry. The youths were accompanied in their protest march by a number of congressmen, state senators and assemblymen. Carrying banners and posters, the students who represented 22 Jewish youth organizations, marched 25 blocks in a symbolic encirclement of the Soviet U.N. Mission and to the United Nations. The march took place on Friday.
Later, at a mass rally in the shadow of the United Nations, the youths heard Sen. Jacob K. Javits, New York Republican, tell them: “We do and we shall continue to protest. We are not just holding this protest for the Jewish people; we are holding it for the freedom of religion for all mankind.” The USSR should know, the senator said, that these “protests will not cease until the Jews in the USSR receive equality with other minorities.”
The youth rally was sponsored by the New York Youth Conference for Soviet Jewry. Some of the banners read: “Awake to the Plight of Soviet Jewry;” “Save Soviet Jewry;” and “That Their Spirit Shall Be Free, Let My People Go.” The marchers demanded the cessation of the discriminatory ban on all forms of Jewish education in the Soviet Union; the cessation of all discrimination against Jewish university students and professionals; the reunification of families torn apart by two world wars; the restoration of Jewish cultural life; and the implementation of rights guaranteed to members of all nationalities under the Soviet constitution.
These demands were later presented by a youth delegation at the U. S. Mission to the United Nations to Ambassador James Nabrit, deputy representative for the U.S. on the U.N. Security Council. The ambassador was asked to use his good offices to implement these demands in the United Nations.
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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.
