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New York Clergymen of All Faiths Hold Prayer Meeting for Soviet Jews

June 16, 1964
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Jewish, Catholic and Protestant clergymen participated in a prayer meeting calling for an end to the religious and cultural discrimination against Soviet Jewry which was held here yesterday near the office of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations.

The Service was attended by some 50 Jewish New York City college students, all members of the recently organized Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. Representatives of the student committee have been staging a hunger protest near the Soviet Mission building since last Tuesday.

The clergymen read selections from the Bible and, in an unusual departure from Jewish practice, the shofar was blown following a prayer voiced by Rabbi Steven Riskin, a teacher at Yeshiva University. The students carred signs reading: “I am my brothers Keeper,” “Re-open the synagogues,” and “Freedom now for Soviet Jews.”

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