Sixty communities across the United States have marked “National Solidarity Sunday” today as a day when Americans of all religious and ethnic backgrounds “reaffirmed their solidarity with the Jews of the Soviet Union.” The National Conference on Soviet Jewry is sponsoring the event.
Mrs. June Rogul, the National Conference’s Washington representative, said that the monthly average of Jewish emigration from Russia to Israel so far this year has dropped more than one third as compared with the same period last year. The decrease in emigration has been coupled with an increase in harassment and the trial of some Jews who have asked to emigrate, she said.
Large urban communities around the country participated in the demonstration of solidarity through a variety of activities. Programs took place in Cleveland, Washington. Baltimore and New York. Governor Brendan Byrne of New Jersey declared June 2 as solidarity day for his state. In the House of Representatives, 126 congressmen of both parties signed a statement that was read at the various community events.
Cleveland Mayor Ralph Perk will write to the mayor of Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. Cleveland’s sister city in the USSR, asking him to intercede on behalf of 13 Jews there who wish to rejoin their families in Israel.
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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.
