About 50 persons marched to the Syrian UN Mission in a teeming rain today and staged a vigil there to protest the recent murders of four Jewish women in Syria and the continued persecution of Syrian Jews. The marchers carried coffins and signs reading, “Free Syrian Jews,” and “Murders in Damascus.” The procession was flanked by several police cars. It was organized by the American Sephardi Federation in cooperation with the American Zionist Federation and the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Deborah Cardozo. assistant to the executive director of the ASF said the demonstration was “an opportunity to bring to the attention of the world that four Jewish women were brutally murdered in Damascus” and that the 4500 Jews in Syria are not permitted to leave. “We call on the world to bring pressure on the Syrian government to let them go,” she said. She denounced the arrest of two Jews in Syria on what she said were trumped up charges that they took part in the murders of the four women.
Earlier, Rabbi Israel Miller, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, declared that the murder of the four women underscores the need for a “world outcry of protest” against the “barbarous” treatment of Jews in Syria. “Only an enlightened and outraged world opinion–by heads of government, by church groups by men of good will of every race and religion–will prevent further acts of terror against the beleaguered remnants of Syrian Jewry,” Rabbi Miller declared. The four women, who were reported to have been raped and tortured to death were the three Zeybak sisters–Toni, 22. Laura, 23. and Farah, 24. and Eva Saad.
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