Worldwide Protests Urged Against Anti-jewish Actions in Rumania

An appeal for a worldwide protest against the latest wave of anti-Jewish actions by Rumania was made here today by the Association of Rumanian Immigrants in Israel. The group issued the appeal after a study of the latest reports of arrests and other oppressive acts against Jews in Rumania.

Idov Cohen, member of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, reported that the latest persecutions, which were launched last March following Arab pressure against migration to Israel, took a variety of forms. These, he said, included pressure against the Israel Legation in Bucharest and its employees, imposing terror in the vicinity of the legation by arrests of people coming or going from the legation, the re-arrest of Zionists who had already finished five-year prison terms and the arrest of Jews seeking to aid other Jews in Rumania.

“This series of actions, which had again put Rumanian Jewry into a state of panic, were a renewal of the cold war at a time when efforts were being made to unfreeze East-West relations,” he declared. Asserting there was a possibility that the change of attitude of Rumanian Communist authorities toward Rumanian Jews might have resulted from internal frictions, he said the net result was the creation of “inhuman situations” for many families.

He cited the case of a young couple whose arrest had left two small children without care. Another case, he said, was that of the arrest of a once-arrested and imprisoned Zionist who had been released with a promise that he could go to Israel and his wife would be allowed to follow him.

It was reported here that 124 split families in Rumania were clinging to the hope of reunion and their condition was serious. The belief here was that Rumanian officials had cancelled their declared intention to allow emigration for reunion of families, causing despair to all concerned.