A shofar was sounded in front of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations as some 400 students from Yeshiva University and Stern College demonstrated today and yesterday in support of their fellow students and faculty members who began a fast last Sunday in solidarity with the Soviet Jewish Prisoner of Conscience Anatoly Shcharansky.
Shcharansky, who is serving a 13-year prison term, began an indefinite hunger strike in the notorious Chistipol Prison on the eve of Yom Kippur. The actions in front of the Soviet Mission were coordinated by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, which has conducted a daily vigil at the Mission since Shcharansky began his fast.
Rabbi Avraham Weiss, of Stem College and the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (N.Y.), who was in the third day of his hunger strike today, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he will continue to fast “as long as I am physically able to do so. The conscience of the world must be aroused to the tragic plight of Shcharansky.” He also said he had received a pledge from Sister Rose Thering of Seton Hall University (South Orange, N. J.) that she and other nuns would also stage a hunger strike.
While the sympathy hunger strike continues in front of the Soviet Mission, classes are also being conducted by other rabbis from Stern College and prayer services are being held.
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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.
