1,000 Demonstrate for Soviet Jews at Pugwash Meet; Present Petition

The 120 delegates to the international Pugwash Conference on “Peace and International cooperation” were urged yesterday “to take into your own hands and hearts the oppression of the Soviet Jews.” The appeal was delivered by a delegation of Jewish community leaders from Illinois and Wisconsin as 1000 persons demonstrated in a downpour of rain outside the hotel where the Pugwash Conference is being held. The demonstration, dubbed “Operation Exodus,” was organized by the Chicago Community Council of Jewish Organizations, representing 41 major Jewish organizations, according to its co-chairmen. Dr. Paul Hurwitz and Mitchell Dredze. They said the appeal was intended especially for the notice of the 18 Soviet delegates to Pugwash. Sufficient copies for all the delegates were accepted by Bernard Feld, of M.I.T., a member of the U.S. delegation, who promised that they would be distributed among all of the conferees. The appeal asked for assistance for Soviet Jews who want to emigrate to Israel but are refused exit permits by Soviet authorities. It also urged an end to the repression of Jewish cultural and religious life in the USSR. (In Mexico City, 2,000 persons, most of them young, attended a public rally yesterday demanding permission for Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. Resolutions to that effect were addressed to the Soviet Government.) (In Jerusalem, it was reported that Soviet Premier Kosygin apparently heeded Tina Brodetskaya’s appeal for permission to emigrate to Israel. The 36-year-old school teacher from Moscow arrived here with her aged parents and a 20-year-old sister. Miss Brodetskaya addressed an open letter to Premier Kosygin last year which was published abroad.)