More than 1,000 students at the University of California at Los Angeles demonstrated today as part of a nationwide one-day “fast for freedom” on 27 American and Canadian campuses, sponsored by B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations in support of Soviet Jewry. Thomas Bradley, a black City Councilman, declared: “There are no boundaries to oppression. Therefore, every concerned human being must express indignation against Soviet oppression of Jews.” Also rallying the demonstrators were Rep. Alphonzo Bell, Republican of this city, and County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. The coordinators of the nationwide student protest have vowed to continue their pressure on the Soviet Union until trials of Jews are ended and freedom of emigration is granted.
(In Washington yesterday, 75 members of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington distributed leaflets on a busy downtown corner near the Soviet Embassy to open an 11-day program of protests against the Leningrad trial of nine Jews. The leaflets said “the sole crime of those being tried is their desire to maintain their Jewish identities, their religious and cultural heritage, and their desire to emigrate to Israel.” The Council will sponsor a public meeting May 19 at Ohr Kodesh Congregation in nearby Chevy Chase, Md., at which Mrs. Rivka Aleksandrovich, mother of Riga prisoner Ruth Aleksandrovich, will speak, Also planned are visits to the Soviet Embassy by Jewish and Christian delegations, war veterans and senior citizens. The University of Maryland Committee on Soviet Jewry staged a demonstration last night at the Embassy.)
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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.