Thousands in Rallies, Vigils, Across Country on Behalf of Soviet Jews

A nationwide Women’s Plea for Soviet Jewish Prisoners of Conscience–with rallies, marches, vigils and demonstrations in more than 50 communities keyed to Human Rights Week–was coordinated today by the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council and sponsored by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Mrs. Jacqueline Levine of Ex-sex County, N.J., chairwoman of the Women’s Plea, said: “We hope that our efforts will result in granting all basic human rights to Soviet Jewish prisoners of conscience whose only ‘crime’ is their desire to emigrate in order to live as Jews.”

In New York, the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry coordinated a rally at Hunter College and a silent circling of the Soviet Mission. The Hunter assemblage was addressed by Roman Rutman, a Soviet activist who recently emigrated, and presidents of the 13 major national Jewish women’s organizations participating in the day’s events. Women outside the Soviet Mission sought to meet with the wife of United Nations Ambassador Yakov A. Malik, but were rebuffed.

At the United Nations, women leaders presented Edward H. Lawson, deputy director of the Human Rights Commission, with 25,000 petitions representing the more than one million to date calling on the Commission, the UN and the U.S. and Soviet governments to help alleviate the plight of Soviet Jews. Lawson, advising that “the United Nations has been concerned with the problem of Soviet Jewry,” said he would write Secretary General Kurt Waldheim about the meeting, mail copies of the petitions to the Soviet government and present the petitions to the Commission’s Feb. meeting, Mrs. Levine called today’s meeting “extremely useful.”

PETITIONERS REBUFFED BY SOVIET OFFICIALS

In New York yesterday, a City Council delegation led by president Sanford D. Garelik tried to present a resolution to the Soviet Mission, but was rebuffed on grounds that emigration was an “internal matter.” The resolution, passed unanimously Nov. 21 by the 37-member Council, allied the Soviets to grant amnesty to Soviet Jewish “prisoners of conscience” during the celebration this month of the 50th anniversary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Councilman Howard Golden, chairman of the Council’s Committee on Health and Education and principal sponsor of the resolution, fixed a copy to the Mission door, but a Mission representative tore it off and threw it to the ground.

In Washington yesterday, four women were told at the Soviet Embassy that they could not are Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrvnin. The Greater Washington Ad Hoc Committee of the Leadership Conference of National Jewish Women’s Organizations had written to Dobrynin Dec. 5 for an appointment but had received no reply. The four were turned away by an officer of the U.S. government’s Executive Protective Service, acting on orders from the Embassy. The EPS protects foreign Installations.

After being turned away the four women joined some 200 women from Jewish organizations in the Washington area holding a silent vigil across the street from the Soviet Embassy. Earlier in the day a conference of the Greater Washington Ad Hoc Committee listened to several speakers, including a Catholic nun and a Baptist minister, read statements of support for Soviet Jews. Mrs. Bella Ulman, a pediatric nurse from Riga who emigrated to Israel in 1971, asked for help in securing emigration for her son. Mishe, a 27-year-old mechanics engineer in Russia.

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