Local News in Brief : Protest for Soviet Jews
More than 200 Jewish schoolchildren staged a noisy rally Monday in downtown Los Angeles to urge Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to allow refuseniks to leave his country.
The children chanted, “Let our people go!” and “1-2-3-4, open up the iron door; 5-6-7-8, let our people emigrate,” in a City Hall courtyard before being addressed by Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and others.
“It’s unfair that they should be locked up,” Michal Dakar, 12, of Hillel Hebrew Academy, said, referring to Soviet Jews who are denied exit from the Soviet Union.
The rally speakers called on Gorbachev and President Reagan to put human rights and Jewish emigration high on their list of topics to discuss when the two begin a summit meeting this week in Washington.
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