The ushering in of the Jewish New Year tomorrow evening will be marked by numerous appeals in this country to the Soviet authorities in Moscow to give equal treatment to the Jews in the Soviet Union and restore fully their cultural and religious rights.
An appeal signed by more than 100 dignitaries in government, religion, education, business, labor and professions will be published in The New York Times tomorrow as a full-page manifesto by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, which is made up of religious and lay leaders of the three major faiths in this country. Signatories will include 35 U.S. Senators, 20 state governors, and religious leaders of the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faiths.
Rabbi Arthur Schneider, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, said that sponsors of the manifesto hoped that the document would “awaken the moral conscience of the world to the plight of the 3, 000, 000 Soviet Jews who are succumbing to a veritable religious and cultural disaster which will eventually result in their complete spiritual extinction and annihilation.”
Hundreds of rabbis throughout the United States and Canada will join in similar appeals to the Soviet Government during the High Holy Days. A “Declaration of Rights for Soviet Jewry” will be posted in almost every Jewish institution in the United States during the week between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, according to Rabbi Israel Miller, chair- man of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry. The conference is an association of 25 national Jewish organizations. The declaration also will be read from pulpits during the High Holy Day services.
In New York, Rabbi Edward T. Sandrow, president of the local Board of Rabbis, asked the 900 members of the Board “to offer special prayers for the 3000, 000 Jews behind the Iron Curtain with the hope that their spiritual life will witness a rebirth and enable them to practice the religion of their fathers so that it becomes the heritage of their children.”
Plans for similar High Holy Day appeals in Canadian synagogues were announced by Rabbi S.M. Zambrowsky, chairman of the religious affairs committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress. He said prayers would be offered “in the hope that the day is not far off when the prophecy of old is fulfilled and ‘all nations and peoples will be united in the bonds of brotherhood and there will be no more room for discrimination in any shape or form.’ ” He added that Soviet Jewry was “threatened with cultural attrition and eventual disappear once as a community unless there is a change of policy on the part of the Government of the Soviet Union.”
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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.
