100,000 in March for Soviet Jews

By Irving Spiegel
April 29, 1974
New York Times 

With priests, ministers and rabbis in the vanguard, a crowd 
estimated by the police at more than 100,000 paraded down 
Fifth Avenue yesterday to demonstrate solidarity with 
Soviet Jews denied the right to emigrate to Israel.

The parade reached a high point when the outpouring of men, 
women and children filled Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on 
East 47th Street for the event, titled "Solidarity Sunday for 
Soviet Jewry."

Governor Wilson, in a proclamation on Soviet Jews, read by 
Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz, said that Solidarity Day 
served "to remind us that the basic human rights which all 
Americans enjoy are still being denied to peoples in 
other parts of the world."

At Hammarskjold Plaza, the throngs stood from building wall 
to building wall, with little room to move on 47th Street from 
First Avenue almost to Third Avenue.

Sponsored by the Greeter New York Conference Of Soviet Jewry, 
composed of 79 agencies and headed by Stanley H. Lowell, 
the parade began at 11:30 A.M. at 68th. Street and Fifth Avenue. 
Men, women and children had arrived by chartered bus from 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

Leading the parade was a 17- foot-high float fashioned as a 
prison tower in a Soviet labor camp. Atop were young people 
in prison garb and others in the uniforms of Soviet guards.

Behind this float were clergymen of all faiths. They carried 
large photographs of Soviet. Jewish prisoners who are in 
Soviet labor camps for what officials of the parade said was 
the "crime" of wanting to emigrate to Israel.

As the clergymen and demonstrators moved solemnly down 
Fifth Avenue to 47th Street under sunny skies with a gentle 
breeze blowing, Mrs. Eunice Bursten of Bayside, Queens, 
carrying a small Israeli flag and wheeling her year‐old daughter 
in a stroller, remarked:

"This is not a question of religion but humanity."

Academicians, scientists and physicians, some in cap and 
gown and others in laboratory coats, marched. They represented 
Soviet Jewish scientists who have been denied exit visas for 
Israel and have reportedly been subject to harassment.

Standing out in bold relief at Hammarskjold Plaza were 
massive signs that said: "They can stop Soviet Jews from 
speaking out but they can't stop us." Other signs said: 
"Let my people go" and "Free the prisoners now."

Loudspeakers, attached to trees and on building walls, 
carried the speakers' remarks to the throngs. Heavy police 
details were on duty, but no incidents were reported. 
One police official said: "A disciplined audience with a good cause."

Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, 
who arrived here recently, received a prolonged ovation 
when he remarked in Hebrew:

"I appeal to all people imbued with a sense of justice 
not to be silent or passive and to do their utmost for 
the Jews of the Soviet Union and in lands such as Syria 
where they suffer. If a Jew is in pain anyplace in the world, 
every Jew feels that pain."

There was sudden silence in the plaza when Cantor Joseph Malovany 
of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue chanted the "El Mole Rachmamim" - 
the He brew prayer for the dead - in memory of Israeli soldiers 
who died in the recent hostilities.

On the large platform at the plaza, the plight of the Soviet Jews 
was emphasized by Mayor Beame and by Senator Henry M. Jackson, 
Democrat of Washington and author of a proposal to deny trade 
concessions to the Soviet Union unless it lifts its barriers to 
free emigration.

Others who stressed the theme were Elie Wiesel, known for his 
writings on the Nazi holocaust and recipient of several literary awards; 
Rabbi Sol Roth, president of the New York Board of Rabbis; 
the Rev. Robert Drinan, Roman Catholic priest and member of 
Congress from Boston, and Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York.