Several thousand Iraqi Jews demonstrated here today, carrying banners calling upon Israel Jews throughout Israel to spare no efforts to rescue their “brethren cruelly terrorized in Iraq” and urging the Israel Government to employ every means to end the persecutions. The demonstrators gathered in front of the Knesset building where their demands were heard by Behor Shitreet, Minister of Police and Minorities.
In Jerusalem, a large number of Jews staged a similar demonstration and called on the government to take immediate steps with the U.N. and the major powers to bring an end to the pogroms.
(An Iraqi Government spokesman was reported in a Reuters dispatch from Bagdad to have stated today that 40 Iraqi Jews have been detained on charges of threatening the peace and security following an assault on the Chief Rabbi of Iraq, Sassoon Khedori. The spokesman dismissed Israel’s charges that Iraq was persecuting and torturing Jews.)
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