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.