More than 500 women gathered yesterday at an interfaith convocation at the Smithsonian Institution to protest the denial of human rights to Soviet Jews and mark the beginning of Human Rights Week hers. The Leadership Conference of National Jewish Women’s Organizations, representing nine education and service groups in the United States was joined in the convocation the United Churchwomen of Greater Washington and the Washington Chapters of the National Council of Catholic Women.
Mrs. Michael Shapiro, past international president of B’nai B’rith Women and chairman of the event, explained the purpose was to help focus the attention of American women on the problems of the oppressed Jews in the Soviet Union. MargyRuth Greenbaum, 22-year-old assistant director of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, spoke of the hardships of Jewish women in the Soviet Union and focussed on Silva Zalmanson Kuznetsov who is “languishing near death in a strict regime Soviet prison camp for her attempts to emigrate to Israel.” Her plight, Miss Greenbaum said, “illustrates the deep determination held by Soviet Jews to secure their freedom to live as Jews.”
CORRECTION
The JTA Daily News Bulletin of Dec. 7 reported that Meyer Pesin, newly elected president of the Jewish National Fund, discussed the planting of an additional 25,000 trees as part of the JNF’s new five-year program. The correct figure should have been 25 million trees.
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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.
