Hundreds of Jewish school children rallied today at Lafayette Park and then marched to the Capitol where they released some 1,000 balloons which bore the inscription, “Let My People Go,” in a demonstration of solidarity with the plight of Soviet Jewry.
The students, from six Washington area Hebrew day schools, joined by 100 adults, listened to several speeches focusing concern on the fall in Soviet Jewish emigration figures, the continued suffering of long term refuseniks and the plight of refusenik children.
At the Capitol reflecting pool they were addressed by Rep. Samuel Gejdenson (D. Conn.) who visited the Soviet Union this year, Gejdenson, whose family fled the Soviet Union in the 1940s said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency following the rally that the Reagan Administration’s efforts to secure the safety of Soviet Jews through quiet diplomacy has not been successful.
“We have to be loud and we have to be persistent and that is the only way to keep the handful of Jews who are still prisoners in the Soviet Union uppermost in both American and Soviet politicians’ minds,” he said. Gejdenson said the Administration’s Failure in quiet diplomacy is best exemplified by the U.S.’s inability to use its “leverage” to “restrain the Argentine generals during the Falklands crisis.”
Today’s rally was sponsored by the Soviet Jewry Committee of the Greater Washington Jewish Community Council.
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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.
