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March 25, 1966 - Image 1

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1966-03-25

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Detroit Jewry on Road to Highest Philanthropic
Attainment With Initial Drive Total of $4,412,520

ET7

Unprecedented Beginning Assures
Vast Campaign Increase Over '65

Detroit Jewry's philanthropic role is assuming a new and
higher status with the assurances provided at the formal open-
of the 1966 Allied Jewish Campaign that the year's total
income may exceed the highest ever attained and that there
already is a certainty that the 1965 contributions will be exceed-
ed by at least $500,000.
At the opening campaign rally at Temple Israel Wednesday
night, Sol Eisenberg, co-chairman, announced initial gifts, secured
in pre-campaign solicitations, of $4,412,520, representing 86 per
cent of last year's income and a 14 per cent increase by the same
donors over their 1965 gifts. With 60 per cent of the prospective
givers yet to be reached. Eis-iberg expressed confidence that
the campaign's total this year will be between $5,600,000 and
$6,000,000—at last a half million above last year. His co-chair-
man, Irwin Green, who introduced the guest speaker, Israel
Ambassador to the United States Avraham Harman, shared
his confidence.
At a dinner for 300 key campaign workers that preceded the
rally, William Avrunin, executive director of the Jewish Welfare
Federation, added to the sense of confidence by expressing the
view that the total will be closer to $6.000,000. In that event,
•1966 will be the top fund-raising year in Detroit Jewry's fund-
raising history, the largest sum raised here having been in 1957,
when $5,918,269 was contributed.
Highlights of the rally, which was attended by more than
1,000 campaign workers and contributors, were, in addition to
the annou--ement of the encouraging campaign start:
A memorial tribute to Rabbi Morris Adler by Rabbi
Irwin Groner; .
Announcement by Hyman Safran, president of the Jewish
Welfare Federation that this year's Allied Jewish Campaign
will mark a record high of $100,000,000 having been given by
Detroit Jews in the 40-year history of the Federation;
The inspiring address by Ambassador Harman, who acclaimed
the partnership between Israel and world Jewry in the task of
assuring security for the Jewish State which provides the instru-
mentality for Jews who have escaped persecution to solve their
own problems.
At a brief program at the dinner that preceded the rally,
reports on the campaign's progress were submitted by Alfred
Deutsch, pre-campaign chairman; Eisenberg, Max Shaye and
Avrunin. There was a brief
greeting by Harman who
praised Detroit Jewry's rec-
ord. The reports commend-
ed the efforts of the wo-
men's division which, under
the chairmanship of Mrs.
Arthur Rice, already raised
a major portion of its goal.
Mrs. Max Stollman, chair-
From left: Hyman Safran, Malcolm

Lowenstein and Rabbi M. Robert Syme.

(Continued on Page '7)

At campaign formal opening are (from left) : Sol Eisenberg, Mrs. Arthur Rice, Ambassador
Avraham Harman, Abraham Borman, Irwin Green and Alfred Deutsch.

HE JEWISH NEWS

MICHIGAN

A Weekly Review

of Jewish Events

Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper, Incorporating The Jewish Chronicle

Vol. XLIX—No.

5

17100 W. 7 Mile Road, Detroit 48235

March 25, 1966

New York `Tri unal' Exposes
Russian Anti-Semitism; Hears
Eyewitnesses' Reports on Bias

NEW YORK — A gloomy picture of a beleaguered Soviet Jewish community
struggling vainly for cultural and religious survival emerged last Friday at a public
hearing on the status of the 3,000,000 Jews of the USSR.
Experts and eyewitnesses — including an anonymous U.S.-born woman who lived
in the Soviet Union for 30 years — told of a government campaign aimed at eliminat-
ing the separate religious and cultural identity of Soviet Jewry.
Bayard Rustin, Negro rights leader, served as chairman of a panel of six "jurors"
who took testimony and examined witnesses. Members of the panel included:
Dr. John C. Bennett, president, Union Theological Seminary; Father George B.
Ford, pastor emeritus, Corpus Christi Church; Samuel Fishman, United Automobile
Workers; Telford Taylor, professor of law, Columbia University; and Norman
Thomas, veteran Socialist leader.
One eyewitness — the Rev. Thurston Davis, S.J., editor of the Jesuit weekly
America, who returned from an inspection survey of religious liberty in the USSR
earlier this year — said that Jews and Roman Catholics living in the Soviet Union
faced "special difficulties" because of their "outside connections as members of an
international group of believers."
He urged Catholics to pray for the survival of Judaism in Soviet Russia and
described the Jews he met there as "ridden with fear." He continued:
"Can Judaism survive in this unfriendly atmosphere? The remaining rabbis are
so old; the Jewish community lives in such apparent fear and insecurity; there
seems to be so little hope that a seminary will be established. There is no question
that the Jews of the Soviet Union need the prayers of their fellow-believers — and
of us all."
(Continued on Page 14)

Study Shows 62 Operating Synagogues in USSR

WALTHAM, Mass.—An intensive survey by the Institute of East European Jewish Affairs at
Brandeis University has resulted in a listing that shows there are at least 62 functioning synagogues in
the Soviet Union.
The listing, shown in the report, was compiled from varied sources in the face of Soviet reluctance
reveal the precise number of synagogues in the USSR, and despite divergent figures that have ema-
ated from official Soviet sources.
The report said the listing, which is the initial part of a comprehensive study of the state of
the Jewish religion in the Soviet Union, does not purport to be exhaustive, because of the difficulty in
obtaining accurate information. "It is possible that some synagogues have escaped our net," the report
said, "but their number is unlikely to be great."
The completion of the study on a subject about which information is scarce will take many
months, said the Institute's director, Prof. Erich Goldhagen.
The Institute, a component of Brandeis' Philip W. Lown School of Near Eastern and Judaic
Studies, was established last year to increase the fund of basic information on the circumstances of some
3,000,000 Jews 1 iving in East Europe. It is the first research program of its kind under aca-
demic auspices.
"The Soviet government cannot but have full knowledge of all legally constituted synagogues
functioning in the Soviet Union, since every religious body is required by law to register with the
authorities," the report stated. "But instead of disclosing the figure, Soviet officials have at var-
ous times given widely-differing numbers."

Some examples compiled by the Institute include the figure given in 1960 by a Soviet official
during a newspaper interview, in which he said there were 400 synagogues in the Soviet Union,
serving 500,000 practicing Jews. A new edition of a Soviet informational handbook that was distri-
buted last fall said there were 97 synagogues in the USSR.
These and other figures are not only contradictory but also greater than the actual number of
synagogues, the report stated. "Here we shall not seek to answer the question of why the Soviet
government has withheld from us the true number of synagogues," said the report. "Is it because
it wanted to conceal from the world the true state of organized Jewish religion in the Soviet Union?
At the present state of our knowledge, answers to this question will remain speculative."
The report, prepared by Joshua Rothenberg, research fellow at the Institute, also listed the
three principal types of Jewish religious associations in the Soviet Union:
"Religious Societies" occupying synagogues leased to them by the state; "groups of believers"
licensed by the government, and which the Jews call "legal Minyanim"; and unregistered prayer
groups called "illegal Minyanim." (Continued on Page 3)

Anti-Semitism Included in UN
Draft Combating Intolerance

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (JTA)—The United Nations Commis-
sion on Human Rights adopted a clause in a draft convention on the
elimination of religious intolerance, calling upon all states to "corn-
bat prejudices such as anti-Semitism and other manifestations, which
lead to religious intolerance."
The vote was 12-4, with four abstentions. The Soviet bloc—USSR,
Poland and the Ukraine—which fought against any proposals calling
for the specific mention of anti-Semitism, abstained.
This is the first time a major UN Convention is to mention
anti-Semitism.
The adopted clause was introduced by Narciso Irureta, of Chile,
after the move to mention anti-Semitism by name had been initiated
in the current session of the commission by Israel's representative
on the UN body, Associate Israeli Supreme Court Justice Haim H.
Cohn. When Justice Cohn introduced the move to call for the com-
bating of anti-Semitism, he was supported staunchly by the United
States delegates, Morris B. Abram, and opposed as firmly by the
USSR representative, Evgeny Nasinovsky.
The Soviet bloc's absentions surprised members of the Commis:
sion since, just prior to the voting on the Chilean clause, a USSR
effort to eliminate the ward anti-Semitism had been badly beaten.
Nasinovsky had proposed that, instead of mentioning anti-Semitism,
the clause should call upon adherents to the Convention to combat
"prejudices in respect of the Christian, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu,
Jud.aic and other religions." Nasinovsky's proposal received only three
votes — his own and those of the Ukraine and Poland. Twelve voted
against the Soviet amendment, while six members abstained.
The members who voted in favor of the Chilean amendment
mentioning anti-Semitism were: Israel, the United States, Britain,
France, Argentina, Austria, Chile, Costa Rica, Dahomey, Italy, the
Netherlands and Sweden. Those who voted against the clause were
India, Iraq, the Philippine Islands and Jamaica.
The commission ended discussion Monday and voted to give "high-
est priority" to completion of the proposed international instrument
in 1967.

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