Special to the JTA Pa. Governor Pledges Aid to Help Secure Shcharansky’s Release

Gov. Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania proclaimed today “Anatoly Shcharansky Day” in the state and pledged that he and every elected official will stand with the Jewish communities and their non-Jewish supporters to secure the release of the Jewish dissident who has been held in a Moscow prison for over a year and faces trial shortly on charges of alleged treason.

The proclamation was presented by Shapp to Theodore Mann, president of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC) and Joseph Smukler, vice-president of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ) at ceremonies in the state capitol. The ceremonies were attended by more than 100 persons, Jewish and Christian from 10 Pennsylvania cities.

They were highlighted by a telephone call to Shcharansky’s wife, Avital, and his brother-in-law Mikhail Stiglitz, in Jerusalem. Shapp assured them that the people of Pennsylvania will not rest until Shcharansky’s freedom is secured. The Governor spoke at length of Shcharansky’s struggle to emigrate and his incarceration, incommunicado, in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.

Mann spoke of Shcharansky as a “symbol of the Soviet Jewry movement.” Smukler recalled his last meeting with the dissident, in Moscow, more than a year ago and pledged personally and on behalf of the NCSJ not to give up the struggle for his freedom. It was announced before the ceremonies began that a statewide committee for Anatoly Shcharansky will be formed under the chairmanship of Shapp and Pennsylvania’s two Senators, Richard Schweiker and John Heinz, both Republican.

The ceremonies were coordinated by Burton Morris, counsel to the Governor, and Eileen Sussman, Soviet Jewry director of the Philadelphia Jewish Community Relations Council, according to Abraham J. Bayer, director of international affairs of the NJCRAC.