Another Soviet Jew Arrested; B’nai B’rith and Sssj Map Actions; Rally Scheduled

Another Soviet Jew who applied for permission to emigrate to Israel has been arrested, according to reports issued today by the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. This brings the total number of Jews arrested in the Soviet Union to 34. The AJCSJ told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that it had learned from a traveler who had returned from the Soviet Union yesterday that 23-year old Semeon Abramovich Levit of 8 Svoboda Street, Kishinev, had been arrested. The same traveler reported the home of Alexander Chenin, also of Kishinev, had been searched and a number of publications in Hebrew and Yiddish were confiscated. These are the latest in the series of arrests, searches and seizures by which the Soviet government has harassed Jews over the past several months. Thirty-three Soviet Jews are currently awaiting a “show trial” scheduled for December 15th, charged with alleged hijacking of a Soviet airplane on June 15th.

In view of the pending trial, 100 high-school and college students, members of the SSSJ, embarked upon a door-to-door campaign today in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn to alert residents on the most recent developments of the plight of Soviet Jewry and to “arouse their understanding and compassion for a very concrete crisis,” according to Glen Richter, National Coordinator of SSSJ. Mr. Richter told the JTA that the students planned to distribute fliers, explain in detail the recent arrests and their implications, and outline fully a plan of action for community members. The SSSJ’ers were also planning to urge Flatbush residents to send telegrams to Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin demanding the release of Leonid Rigerman from the Soviet Union. Mr. Rigerman, a young Russian Jew, who was arrested and jailed recently after attempting to enter the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to prove his American citizenship, is presently out of jail, but detained in the Soviet Union, awaiting word from the U.S. on his citizenship status.

Mr. Richter also announced plans for a massive rally on behalf of Soviet Jewry to be held on Human Rights Day, December 10th, at the Hunter College Assembly Hall here in New York. Meanwhile Dr. William A. Wexler, President of B’nai B’rith, urged an expression of concern over the fate of Soviet Jews facing trials. He told a mass meeting several days ago in Miami Beach, Florida, commemorating B’nai B’rith’s 127th anniversary year, that “Jews who live in freedom have a responsibility to speak out forcefully” against the detention and imminent trials of 33 Jews “whose only real offense is their insistence on being Jews and wanting to emigrate to Israel.” Dr. Wexler asked the ground to “write your sentiments to Soviet leaders.” He had done so Monday, he said, in a letter to Premier Alexei N. Kosygin asking that the USSR affirm its own laws and commitments to United Nations Human Rights Conventions by halting the trials and allowing the arrested persons and their families to emigrate.