Declaring it was “contrary to the purposes of the law” to jail students who demonstrated in support of the Soviet Jews in front of the Soviet Embassy last month, a District of Columbia General Sessions Court Judge gave 17 Philadelphia students a suspended sentence yesterday. Judge Alfred Berka gave the suspended sentence under the Youth Correction Act, which permits youthful offenders to wipe their records clean by keeping out of trouble for six months after their first offense. The 17 youths, all students at the University of Philadelphia, chained themselves to the fence at the Soviet Embassy on April 9 and presented Embassy officials with a petition in support of Russian Jews signed by 300 university professors. They read a statement in the courtroom yesterday, saying they were risking the 60-day prison term or $100 fine because it was a minor thing compared to the plight of Boris Kochubievsky, who was sentenced one year ago for asking to leave the Soviet Union and go to Israel with his wife and children. They said that the entire Soviet Union was a prison for Russian Jews, and they were all sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
