Allon Predicts Arrests of Jews, Search of Homes May Be Prelude to Show Trial in USSR

Deputy Premier Yigal Allon said today that if official manifestations of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union are taken into account, “it appears that any differences between now and the Czarist days is artificial.” Mr. Allon spoke in the Knesset in reply to six motions for the agenda on the situation of Jews in Russia. “If proof was needed that 52 years of Communism has not brought about any solution to the Jewish problem in the Soviet Union, the recent hijack libel followed by arrests and searches, and perhaps to be crowned by a show trial, supply the proof.” The agenda motions which the Knesset referred to its Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, expressed concern that an alleged attempt by Russian dissidents, including one or more Jews, to hijack an airliner at Leningrad airport on June 15 was being used as a pretext for the arrest of eight Jews in that city and the search-raids of Jewish homes there and in several other Russian cities. Mr. Allon said, “As far as the government of Israel is concerned, we shall not rest and shall use all the political, diplomatic and moral strength at our disposal to rally the enlightened world to the rescue of Soviet Jewry.” (In London, the Universities Committee for Soviet Jewry was scheduled to demonstrate today outside the gates of the Soviet Embassy here in protest against the arrest of eight Leningrad Jews. The committee, which said the demonstration would be peaceful, issued a statement noting recent “ominous signs for those who dissent and speak out in the Soviet Union.” It said the outlook for Soviet Jewry “looks extremely bleak and grim,” and voiced fears of additional repression and mass arrests.)