‘seder for Justice’

Leonard Garment, U.S. representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights, Special State Prosecutor Maurice Nadjari and Judge Jacob Fuchsberg of the State Court of Appeals were among a group of prominent New York jurists, attorneys and law enforcement officials who gathered yesterday for a unique “Seder for Justice.”

Participating also in a demonstration of solidarity with their Jewish colleagues in the USSR who are unable to celebrate Passover were Kings County District Attorney Eugene Gold and Kenneth Gribetz, Rockland County (NY), DA; city Investigations Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta; and Prof. Howard Greenberger of New York University Law School. The seder, which took place in Haydn Hall of NYU Law School, was sponsored by the New York Legal Coalition for Soviet Jewry, an affiliate of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry. Rabbi Emanuel Rackman of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue conducted the seder service.

On hand also at the seder was Aviva Gendin, 24, who has not seen her husband Lev for four years. Three months after their marriage, she was forcibly separated from her husband when she was given 10 days to leave the USSR. She is in New York as a guest of the Greater New York Conference to take part in “Solidarity Sunday for Soviet Jewry” May 2, and to gain support for her efforts to be reunited in Israel with her husband.

The service focussed on the struggle of Vladimir Lazaris, a Soviet Jewish lawyer and “refusanik” ###son in Israel. Lazaris has been threatened with arrest for his legal efforts on behalf of other Soviet Jews who have been sentenced to long prison terms because of their emigration activities. At the seder, It was made known that the deans of six law schools have issued an appeal for justice for Lazaris to Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny.