University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Freedom Demanded For Russian Jews

We wish to extend a warm
welcome to the Beryozka
Dance Company. We are eager
for U.S. – U.S.S.R. cultural
exchanges such as this to occur
and prosper.

It is important to remember,
however, that while the
Beryozka Dance Company
entertains us this evening, our
brothers and sisters in the
Soviet Union are being denied
their basic rights as human
beings and citizens of the
U.S.S.R.

In contravention of its own
constitution and in flagrant
disregard for many of its
international agreements, the
Government of the Soviet
Union is forbidding Jews to
live a full and free cultural and
religious existence in the
U.S.S.R. and is severely
hampering their efforts to
emigrate to Israel. At this very
moment Jewish students brave
enough to assert their rights as
Soviet citizens remain unjustly
imprisoned.

Beryozka Dance Company,
we, concerned Jewish students
at the University of Virginia,
ask you to take this message
back to your leaders: LET
OUR PEOPLE GO!

Ethics

An Open Letter to Messrs.
Neill Alford and Jim Rinaca:

When a journalist is
presented with a newsworthy
story, he is bound by both
honor and "journalistic ethics"
to make it public.

If he is asked to breach that
bond, his silence certainly
cannot be interpreted as assent.
It simply means that he will
continue his effort to get and
make public newsworthy facts.

The next time you have a
statement to make which you
don't want revealed, I
respectfully suggest that you
don't say it in a reporter's
presence.