Some 100 women of the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry picketed the store of I. Magnin to protest the sale of Russian furs. Shelley Fernandez, chairman of the Women’s Branch of the BACSJ, said “We are firmly resolved to stop buying at stores which sell Russian furs while the Soviet Union imposes a ransom tax on Jews.” She said other stores in the area would be picketed and called “upon women all over America to take similar actions in their own cities.” The demonstration featured a mass burning of credit cards. John Brunell, the store’s vice-president, reportedly claimed that “only five percent of our fur business is in Russian furs.” Miss Fernandez responded that Brunell’s admission only strengthened the feeling that his company should be willing to make a humane gesture by discontinuing further purchases.
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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.
