Taft Will Bring Shapiro Case to Senate Floor

Sen. Robert Taft Jr. (R.Ohio) plans to bring up the matter of Judy Silver and her husband Gavriel Shapiro on the Senate floor within a day or two, an aide to Sen. Taft told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today. The aide indicated that the Senator was still gathering material on the case of the Russian Jewish activist and the Cincinnati social worker who were married in Moscow in a Jewish religious ceremony last Thursday.

Shapiro, 27, a chemist, was arrested at Moscow airport Monday where he was seeing off his wife whose Russian visa expired that day. The couple had been denied a civil marriage by Soviet authorities and Mrs. Shapiro’s request for a visa extension was refused.

An aide to Sen. Taft told the JTA that his office had asked the State Department Saturday night to take some action whereby Soviet authorities would extend Mrs. Shapiro’s visa. But nothing could be done in that direction, presumably in view of the time problem and the nature of the visa extension, the aide indicated. The bride and her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Nathan Silver of Cincinnati, are constituents of Sen. Taft.

The Senator’s office said they had not heard from Mrs. Shapiro since her return to New York yesterday afternoon. Meanwhile circles working here on behalf of Soviet Jews seemed to take a dim view of Miss Silver’s marriage to Shapiro as it affected his chances for freedom and eventual permission to emigrate to Israel. These circles claimed that the marriage exposed Shapiro to the point where he was arrested and now faces serious charges of desertion, whereas prior to his marriage, Soviet authorities had not bothered to seize him. One source remarked that "nobody like Shapiro could hide for more than a day from the Soviet police but they left him alone until this (his marriage) came up."

Israel’s Zim Lines has established a bi-weekly cargo service to Greek and Turkish ports, it was announced today.