The prediction by Soviet Jews in a recent appeal that the Soviet anti-Jewish harassment campaign would spread to non-activists has evidently been borne out, according to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.
The groups learned that Moscow Synagogue congregant Sergei Reser was sentenced April 19 to 15 days’ imprisonment for “disrupting traffic” after he asked a plainclothes police agent to show identification as authorities sought to disperse worshippers after services on April 16. Other congregants attempted unsuccessfully to prevent his arrest.
In Leningrad, 68-year-old Communist Party member Mikhail Furman, who has not applied for exit but whose son, Lev, is a refusnik, was sentenced to 10 days. Another activist said only that it was because the elder Furman “was helping the Jews,” it was reported.
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