90 Egyptian
Jews Remain
Imprisoned
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The number of Egyptian Jews still held in prison in that country has dwindled to about 90 — less than
half the number imprisoned without charges five months ago, the Washington Post reported from Cairo. Correspondent William Tuohy
of the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post news service quoted an "official source at the Cairo rabbinate" as the source of his in-
formation.
The newsman said that five months ago Grand Rabbi Haim Douek said he believed 225 Jews were still incarcerated in Tourah
Prison between Cairo and the suburb of Helwan to the north. During the Six-Day War, an estimated 600-700, mostly family heads,
were rounded up and jailed on unspecified "security" charges, Tuohy said.
The rabbinate official interviewed said the 90 Jews still held are all Egyptian citizens. He was reported saying there are still
1,000 to 1,200 Jews left in Egypt of the 80,000 who lived there 20 years ago. Most of them live in Cairo and environs and in Alexandria.
Rabbi Douek has applied for an exit permit, Tuohy reported, but has not yet received an answer from Egyptian authorities. "The
government decides who can leave. If they decide against you, you don't get a reply. As to what goes into their decision, I just can't
answer," he was quoted. The correspondent quoted Rabbi Douek saying the average Egyptian displays no animosity toward Egyptian
Jews. "There are very, very few anti-Semitic fanatics," he was quoted. Only some 25 persons attend Friday and Saturday services, Toul:y
quoted his other "official source." "In the past the synagogue was crowded, but no longer. Most of the men of the families have gone
abroad, and the people feel alone here."
JEWISH NEWS
Universally Humane
Road From Moon
Arab Lies Make
U.S. a Scapegoat
1=r1 7'1=2
A Weekly Review
Editorials
Page 4
VOLUME LV—No. 20
IN/II I—IIGAf ■ .I
-r
of Jewish Events
Clergyman Defines
Jerusalem's
True Status
Zionist Crisis,
Need for Unity
Commentary
Page 2
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
27
17100 W. 7 Mile Rd., Detroit 48235
$7.00 Per Year; This Issue 20c
VE 8-9364—August 1, 1969
—
UN Involved in New ME Crisis;
Observers' Status Endangered
Kuwait Anti-Israel Propaganda
Sent to State Dept., Congressmen
WASHINGTON—(JTA)--Packets containing anti-Israel propaganda
have been sent to members of Congress, the State Department and some
senators, among them four members of the foreign relations committee,
by the embassy of Kuwait here. The materials, printed in Beirut, Lebanon,
were handsomely packaged in a black plastic wrapper containing a Beirut
post office box number.
Recipients of the'literature have included Sen. J.W. Fulbright, Arkan-
sas Democrat, foreign relations committee chairman; George D. Aiken,
Vermont Republican; Stuart Symington, Missouri Democrat; and Jacob
H. Javits,•New York Republican, known for his ardent pro-Israel position.
The packet contains a large brochure entitled "The Arabs Under
Israeli Occupation" and is attributed to the Arab Women's International
Committee and was said to have been delivered to the Regional Confer-
ence on Human Rights in Beirut last December.
The enclosed documents charge that Israeli officials were guilty of
mistreating prisoners of war, of torture, forcible deportation of Arab
residents, and mistreatment of refugees. The packet also contains a
number of booklets and pamphlets with the general theme that the
founding and continued existence of Israel have been illegal.
. Several booklets were published by the Institute of Palestine Studies,
which is headed by Lebanon's President, Charles Helou. Other pamphlets
contain the imprint of the University Christian Center Forum. Beirut.
They include: "Is the Old Testament Zionist?" and "Some Historical
(Continued on Page 5)
UNITED NATIONS, N. Y. (JTA) — The most pressing question on the
United Nations' Middle East agenda — will Secretary-General U Thant seek to with-
draw his observer corps at the Suez Canal — remains unanswered. That question has
been asked in the wake of the death Sunday of a Swedish observer who, the UN
says, was killed by an Israeli shell.
The first action taken by the secretary-general, a UN spokesman said, was
an informal meeting between one of his high secretariat political aides and repre-
sentatives of the seven nations whose troops constitute the observer mission. They
conferred with Brian E. Urquhart, director of Thant's office for political affairs, to
discuss developments at the canal following the death of Maj. B. Roland Plane.
The question of withdrawal of the 90 95 observers was not on Monday's
agenda but may be considered at a formal meeting planned later by Thant and
-
representatives of the seven nations. Thant, who has been recuperating at his
home from an operation, hoped to be back in his office.
Monday's session was also devoted to past suggestions made by the secretary-
general to insure the safety of the observers on both sides of the canal. Thant
warned July 7 that he might ask the Security Council to bring the observers
home if they continued to come under fire from Israel and Egypt during cross-
canal fighting. Present at Monday's meeting were Argentina, Austria, Chile, France.
Sweden, Finland and Ireland.
Sweden has not signified any desire to have its contingent withdrawn
since Maj. Plane was killed at his observation post on the canal's west bank during
an artillery duel near Port Tewfik. It was reported that an attempt has been made
to strengthen the shelters housing the UN personnel on both sides of the 103-mile-
long waterway. as requested by Thant. But another suggestion—that of establish-
ing "safe perimeters"—has not been dealt with.
(Continued on Page 5)
Expose of Frameup Against Jewish Engineer
Reveals Growing Anti-Semitic USSR Policies
WASHINGTON (JTA) — An article in an underground publication of Soviet intellectuals suggests that an official frameup
was the basis of the imprisonment of Boris Kochubievsky, the 33-year-old Kiev Jewish engineer now serving a three-year term
In a labor camp on charges of slandering the Soviet society and government, according to a report in the Washington Post. Its
United Nations correspondent Robert H. Estabrook cited material assembled by the Academic Committee on Soviet Jewry
Which had appealed to Soviet Communist Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev to allow the engineer and his wife to go to Israel before
news became known in New York of the engineer's trial and conviction. He was arrested last December after he and his non-
Jewish wife had been promised permits to go to Israel. He was sentenced last May 26.
The indication that a government provocateur trapped the Jewish engineer appeared in Khronika, the underground
publication, the Post correspondent reported. Some of the publication's sponsors are among the 55 persons who signed a petition
to the United Nations last May about human rights violations in the Soviet Union which specifically mentioned the engi-
neer's trial.
The reported entrapment occurred at a memorial ceremony last September at Babi Yar, the ravine outside Kiev where
the Nazis killed 100,000 Jews. The official speakers did not mention the fact that virtually all the victims of the Babi Yar
massacre were Jews but did denounce Israel. According to the underground publication, the engineer was aproached by an
acquaintance who reported overhearing a conversation in which a woman remarked that the Nazis had killed 100,000 Jews and a
man nearby had replied "not enough."
The angered engineer was said to have told his acquaintance that Russians would naturally talk in that way when
•
official speeches denounced Israeli "aggression" and ignored the fact that most of the Babi Yar victims had been Jews.
In an argument with the purported provocateur, according to the Khronika report, the engineer asserted that the Jews had
been killed for being Jews.
According to Estabrook, Kochnbievsky's troubles with the government began in June 1967 when he arose at a meeting at
•
the radio factory where he worked to defend Israel which had been charged with "aggression" by a lecturer. Censured
by his union. he quit his job in May 1968. and applied to go to Israel with his new wife. Permits were initially refused on grounds
that the Soviet Union had no diplomatic relations with Israel and that his wife would be leaving her "old parents," the Post
reported. On Nov. 28, the engineer was informed that exit permits for him and his wife had been approved, but on the same day
their apartment was searched and on Dec. 7, he was arrested on charges of slandering the Soviet state.
The Khronika article said that one of the principal witnesses at Kochublevsky's trial was the unnamed person who approached
him at the Babi Yar ceremony and provoked the argument. The publication also reported that an assistant dean at a teachers
college had sought to persuade the engineer's wife to divorce him, telling her that she had "a girl friend who is is married to a Jew
and she says all Jews smell bad. You are in love with him, you don't mind but once you get" to Israel, "the whole country smells
bad," she reportedly said.
The engineer's remark at the Babi Yar service that "here lies a part of the Jewish people" was cited by the prosecutor at
his trial as "Zionist propaganda." The trial judge reprimanded the engineer's pregnant wife for preferring her husband to member-
- ship in the Communist Youth Organization from which she had been expelled for "Zionism." That information, Estabrook reported,
was based on documents provided to the academic committee, some of which were based on eye-witness accounts of the trial.
Twelve Kiev residents wrote to the prosecuting attorney, complaining they had been excluded from the nominally open trial
on instructions of the Soviet secret police. The engineer's brother also was barred from attending, the Post reported.
14-Year-Old Boy's
Curiosity Prevents
Calamity in Haifa
HAIFA—(JTA)—A 14-year-old Israeli
boy's curiosity was credited by police with
frustrating saboteurs' plans for a major
blast in a circus here which was timed to
maim and kill hundreds of the circus-goers.
Benjamin Peretz and a youthful friend
had been looking at the Tokyo Fair from
the street but apparently did not intend to
watch the performance. They wandered
over to one of the numerous watermelon
stands looking for "spare" melons. Benja-
min opened a melon and observed a pencil-
like object embedded in the opening. He
removed it and playfully threw it at his
friend. It exploded, injuring the boy slightly.
Police were called to the melon stand
and began a search. They found the sus-
pected melon and inside of it a kilogram
of explosives. A second melon was found
with three times that much explosive. An
old coat, to which no one had paid any at-
tention, was found to have 20 sticks of
gelegnite sewn into its lining. The circus
performance was halted immediately and
the audience followed instructions to leave
by the tent through its back entrance while
the search for more explosives continued.
No more were found.
A major catastrophe in damages, injuries
and death could have occurred.
Police immediately rounded up some
300 local Arabs, with 28 kept in custody for
more questioning. Some hot-headed Jewish
youths tried to attack Arabs in the vicinity
but police moved quickly and stopped the
threat. The injured boy was released from
the hospital.