The murder of a Jewish hatmaker in the Soviet Georgian village of Gudauta was condemned as an anti-Semitic act by the Association of Immigrants from Soviet Georgia meeting here today. The victim was Shalom Khakmishvili. The emigres said his murder boded ill for the future of Georgian Jews who want to immigrate to Israel. (The Soviet Embassy in London today accepted a letter from a group of 35 Jewish women who had been maintaining a vigil for the release of Roiza Palatnik, a Jewish girl in Odessa imprisoned last Dec. 1 after she applied for an exit visa. The Embassy refused the womens’ request for a meeting with an official. According to reliable sources, all efforts to obtain her release have failed. Several lawyers seeking to defend her in court have been warned off the case. The sources said the girl has been on a hunger strike for several days and is in poor health. A 24-year-old Moscow Jew, Alexander Zhenin, was reported today to be confined to a mental hospital after his arrest several days ago while playing Hebrew records on his phonograph.)
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