Thousands of Jewish lay and rabbinic leaders from more than 100 communities throughout the country will converge on Washington next Sunday, September 19, to launch a week-long National Eternal Light Vigil for Soviet Jewry. The program is sponsored by the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, consisting of 24 national Jewish religious, civic and Zionist organizations, representing the major portion of American Jewry.
The Conference was founded in April, 1964, at an emergency convocation in Washington. At that time the Jewish groups planned coordinated action to protest against the religious and cultural persecutions imposed upon 3,000,000 Jews in the Soviet Union. Jewish leaders said here today that the Washington Vigil was the first public action demonstration ever held in the nation’s capital under the auspices of all of the Jewish bodies.
The Vigil program will launch a more direct involvement of national Catholic, Protestant, labor, business and other groups in dealing with the Soviet Jewish question. Many community leaders are coming to the Vigil with Catholic or Protestant laymen or clergymen as “interfaith teams.” Local mayors are appointing special delegations of citizens to demonstrate American solidarity in support of this problem.
Participants in the program will include: James Roosevelt, United States Representative on the United Nations Economic and Social Council; the Rev. John Cronin, of the National Catholic Welfare Conference; Bayard Rustin, Victor Reuther, Bishop John Wesley Lord (Methodist), Theodore Bikel; Chaim Grade, Yiddish writer; Michael Harrington; and Rabbi Seymour J. Cohen, of Chicago, chairman of the steering committee of the America. Jewish Conference.
DRAMATIC CEREMONY SCHEDULED; GROUPS TO COME BY TRAIN, PLANE, AUTOS
Climax of the demonstration, to be held in LaFayette Park, will be a dramatic ceremony kindling the Eternal Light flame by a young boy and girl from Washington, to symbolize the future generation of Jews and the continuity of Jewish cultural and religion life in the USSR. The Eternal Light will remain standing in the park for the entire week, protected by an honor guard. On Friday, September 24, a religious ceremony will conch the week-long Vigil. Then the Eternal Light will be sent to communities throughout the country for local protest meetings.
At the conclusion of the Washington ceremony, a Shofar will sound a “call to co-science.” Then the thousands of community representatives will be asked to proceed in a silent processional past the Soviet Embassy here. They will have to walk 500 feet opposite the Embassy, to comply with Washington demonstration regulations.
Rabbi Cohen said today: “We choose to hold this Vigil a week before the most sacred period in the Jewish calendar because, during the High Holy Days, Jews everywhere experience a heightened sense of spiritual re-awakening and continuity. The Vigil will be a sober and responsible ceremony reflecting our earnest desire for an abatement of cold war tension, and also our determined commitment to protest the policy of forced assimilation of Soviet Jewry.”
A specially-chartered “Vigil train” will leave from New York’s Pennsylvania Station on Sunday morning, September 19, making stops in Newark, Trenton, and Philadelphia Jewish organizations have taken complete railroad cars for their constituents. A number synagogues in the greater New York area are traveling down by car pools. Chicago, Cinnati, Springfield, Mass. and Hartford have chartered planes. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Norfolk and Newport News, Va., New Haven, Bridgeport, Westchester and L Island communities are chartering buses.
On Monday, September 20, about 250 invited representatives from the communities will meet at the State Department for a special briefing on the Soviet Jewish problem Delegations will also visit with Congressmen and Senators to stress the need for continue United States government action through diplomatic channels, at the United Nations, and through personal contact with Soviet leaders.
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.
