Purely Commentary
' Our Deluded Youth Who Fail to See
Menacing Kremlin Threats . . .Amnesty
International's Conflicting„ Reports
Misled Jews Who Follow Communist
The Russian Antagonisms . . . Communist Enigmas . .
Line ... Protests From Victims of Discriminations . . . Shocking Examples of Prejudice . . .
LONDON (JTA)—A self-exiled Soviet author said that "The Jews in the Ukraine are so
intimidated that they are ready to sign anything." Anatoli Kuznetsov, author of a book on Babi
Yar, in a letter published in the Daily Telegraph, referred to a letter. printed March 12 in the
Communist Party newspaper Pravda, alleging that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis in the Babi
Yar massacre of Jews during World War I. The letter was signed by Ukrainian Jews. Kuznetsov
said the allegation was "carrying cynicism beyond the bounds of comprehension" and observed
that "the people who signed the slander in Pravda presumably were forced to do it." Kuznetsov,
who defected to the West last August, has claimed to have more knowledge about the Babi Yar
massacre than "anyone else in the world," having lived in Kiev, near Babi Var. at the time.
Kuznetsov said the Soviet censors had completely mutilated the account of the tragedy in his book.
He said he is planning to publish soon the complete text of his work.
NEW YORK (JTA)—Leon Trotsky. one of the architects of the Russian, Revolution and
an ardent anti-Zionist, is being depicted as a Zionist agent in a novel published in Moscow several
days ago and already a runaway best seller, according to reports reaching here. Ivan Shevtsov's
"In the Name of Father and Son." which deals with life in a Moscow metallurgical plant. has one
character, a Jew named Aaron Horzovich, who says of Trotsky: "Sometimes the Zionist agents
manage to infiltrate the leadership of the Communist Party as did Judas•Trotsky or Bronstein."
Bronstein was Trotsky's original name. The book is said to be filled with anti-Zionist statements.
The novel was released during the current frenzied anti-Zionist and anti-Israel campaign by the
Soviet government.
NEW YORK (JTA)—A pale, slightly built, bespectacled young •man wearing a yarmulka
began a hunger strike. March 25, outside of United Nations headquarters. Pasha Kazakov, 23.
who was born in Moscow and went to Israel a year ago, said it would continue until "the combined
voice of free people will bring about a change in the attitude of the Soviet government" toward
the Jews Specifically, young Kazakov is protesting the refusal of Soviet authorities to permit his
parents. Joseph and Sofia Kazakov, his brother, Alexander, and his sister, Vera, to join him in
Israel. He also demands freedom to emigrate for his aunt. cousins and grandmother and all Jews
who want to leave the USSR. He has urged others to join his vigil at the Isaiah Wall on United
Nations Plaza facing the skyscraper home of the world organization.
Kazakov speaks only Russian and Hebrew and recounted his story through an interpreter
who had joined him in his vigil. He is a student at the Israel Polytechnic Institute in Haifa where
he enrolled a year ago after Soviet authorities inexplicably granted him an emigration visa but
refused the rest of his family. His father. a 49-year-old economics engineer, lost his job after
requesting permission to leave. Last month he and 38 Russian Jews took the unprecedented step
of addressing a letter to the Soviet foreign ministry pressing for their emigration rights. They
made a copy, containing their names, addresses and occupations and made it available to western
newsmen. The letter was subsequently published abroad. Young Kazakov told the Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency that since then, the Soviet government newspaper Izvestia has singled out his father
for persecution. "He has lost his job and has no means of support for my family," the youth said.
He undertook his fast, he said. to help "the struggle of Soviet Jews" for freedom. "I am
proud to identify myself here with their struggle. They are showing great courage in persisting
in their demand to allow them to go to Israel in the face of the hostility of the Soviet authorities,"
he said, adding, "Their struggle is the struggle of all free people. The Jews of Soviet Russia have
a right to call on all free people to raise their voice in their support." The youth conducts his
vigil from seven a.m. to 10 p.m. He sleeps in a mobile trailer provided by friends. The trailer
contains his picket signs. About eight young people were with him one morning, though none
were fasting.
One man, who identified himself as Alex Schlesinger, a survivor of the Auschwitz and
Birkenau concentration camps in World War If, said he joined young Kazakov "to remind the
world of a pledge each of us concentration camp inmates made 27 years ago when we sat in the
death camps of Europe . . . that if we ever emerged from the Hitler ordeal, we would never again
sit by in silence while Jews anywhere in the world were being persecuted and abused." Kazakov
told the JTA, through an interpreter, that he will return to Israel. "It is my home,- where I
belong." But he said he would continue his hunger strike until the UN acts on behalf of Soviet
Jews. A number of appeals from Soviet Jews to the UN for help in emigrating to Israel have
been forwarded to the UN by Israel's chief representative, Ambassador Yosef Tekoah. Among
them is one from the elder Kazakov. Kazakov got re enforcements on Sunday. Students from
Jewish day schools and yeshivas joined his protest in front of the UN.
There are so many who are doubtful about conditions in Russia that the news stories offered here
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as an introduction to comments on conditions in the Soviet Union must be presented in the effort to
enlighten the uninformed on what is transpiring in the USSR and in the ultimate objective to secure
succor for Russian Jewry and a change in the Russian position that smacks of anti-Semitism.
It is ludicrous to speak of the anti-Zionist, the defected Jew Leon Trotsky, as a Zionist. But for
anti-Semite propaganda there is no limit to the type of distortion that can be expected. If the blood libel
could be revived in Russian anti-Semitic propaganda, then anything else is possible.
Similarly, when the Babi Yar tragedy is utilized as anti-Zionist propaganda, one's hair stands on
end in scanning the libelous material that pours out of the Soviet Union.
What concerns us is the attitude of young Jews at home. Here is a typical example:
There was a demonstration in protest against Russian discriminations imposed upon the Jewish
citizens of the USSR staged by the Ann Arbor students. The day preceding the demonstration the Michigan
Daily published a letter written by a chap who, we are told, is a graduate student of high rank. That
letter both ridiculed and condemned the actions of those who were exposing the Russian discriminations.
He called it all "Semantic pollution" and from his sense of shock over a Jewish "crusade" to malign
Russia and then came this indictment of American Jews who resort to protests against the Kremlin's
policies:
"After having talked with several supporters of the current crusade, I sense that there is an
ulterior motive behind all this business, namely emigration to Israel. Ever since June, 1967, there has
been a great movement to encourage emigration to Israel in order to strengthen that country against
hostile Arab forces. The Soviet Jewish community presumably contains people who would emigrate
to Israel if they were given the chance. The current crusade, then, has as its real aim to put pressure
on the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate to Israel for the purpose of strengthening the Israeli
state. If this is their aim, the crusaders ought to be honest and say so openly, instead of misrepresent-
ing their cause by appealing to people's noble charitable feelings as well as pandering to their baser
anti-Communist and anti-Soviet prejudices."
By Philip
Slomovitz
Not All the Shouting Is Anger in Cairo
An occasional memo from Cairo emerges as proof that not all the
Nasser - inspired venom creates hatred and that there are some peace
lovers even in the midst of saber-rattling.
A short time ago, Steven S. Rosenfeld, writing from Cairo for the
Washington Post, reported that the war psychosis was not predominant
in the Egyptian capital and concluded his account of his visit there with
the following:
Egyptian newspapers evidently offer a rich diet of Arab suc-
cesses and Israeli frustrations. The big event in 1967 is known as
the aggression not the war and the Suez Canal is the front not the
frontier. Yet Cairo radio reportedly has retreated to a moderation
stunning to listeners of all stripes. Fatah guerrilla posters are seen
only on scattered walls and shops. The billboards advertise movies
—Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story" is coming by the way—
not war.
In a coffee shop at 2 a.m. recently, a customer interrupted a
mixed group of Europeans and Egyptians who were taking politics.
The man wanted to report that the Israelis had bombed him out of
his home and business in Ismailia on the Canal, and Egypt must go
to war—to redeem its honor, as the Arabs put it.
To the group's surprise, another man in the coffee shop rose
and—disregarding the widespread suspicion of police agents in
public places—entered the conversation to insist that Egypt must
have peace. And thus were the ambivalent mood of the city and the
issue of the day joined.
There are many indications that there is a desire for peace in many
Arab ranks, but the terrorists have frightened them to such a degree
that they fear to sneak up. Too few in their ranks have access to
the true facts. therefore the difficulty to create a front against militar-
ism and the El Fatah terror.
The False Cry of Mistreatment of Arabs
In a new report issued this week, Amnesty International speaks
of alleged mistreatment of Arab prisoners by Israel. But Israel holds
the door open to anyone wishing to do the investigating thoroughly.
The Amnesty International indictment is clearly based on "hearsay."
So—even in the not-too-good subsequent report Amnesty still reasserts
Israel's liberal position.
It will be recalled that Amnesty International earlier investigated
the charges and one of the reports submitted after a thorough investi-
gation, signed in behalf of the international secretariat of Amnesty
International by Martin Ennals, stated in a communication to Israel
Commissioner of Prisons Arie Nir:
"I would him to congratulate you on the disciplinary fashion in
which the prisons are organized and to say that both Sir Michael
Williams and I are quite convinced that there is no ill-treatment of
prisoners under your administration. Obviously conditions in terms
of overcrowding are not ideal, and it is unfortunate that there is at
present no furniture in the cells in some prisons. I have no doubt
that this will be rectified as soon as possible as the thought of
people spending their lives without furniture, sleeping on the floor
summer and winter without beds and sitting in rooms without
chairs throughout long periods of imprisonment must be as undesir-
able to you as to the prisoners themselves."
Very recently, in another report on "Care of Prisoners, F. Ashe
Lincoln, outlined his findings, in a statement to the London Times, as
follows:
Sir:
On a recent journey to Israel, I visited among other places the
Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. While I was there, I was informed
that, among their patients, they had some prisoners from the El
Fatah who had been wounded and captured while carrying out
terrorist activities.
I was allowed to visit these men and to speak to them quite
freely. In fact, the guards and other Israelis left the room so that
we were able to talk without interference. The Arab prisoners
spoke English quite well and expressed the greatest appreciation of
the treatment that they were receiving at the hands of the Israelis.
It was quite apparent that they were, in fact, getting the Cmest
medical attention and the same food and comforts as other patients
in the hospital. They admitted to me that they had been consider-
ably surprised at the kindness they had received and at all the
conditions they saw in Israel, saying that they had now had their
eyes opened and realized how much they had been misled by mali-
cious propaganda.
Considering that these men had been engaged in terrorist activi-
ties which endangered the lives of innocent women and children,
their treatment showed a remarkable absence of rancour or hatred
on the part of their captors.
I should like to add that, while in Israel, I visited many of the
occupied territories and had full opportunity of interviewing Arab
leaders and notables, as well as those of the ordinary people who
could speak English. These discussions always took place in the
absence of any Israelis and, indeed, I was the guest for a whole day
of one of the Arab leading families.
No word of complaint of the treatment of their people was ever
uttered, but, on the contrary, I heard only the highest praise of all
the Israeli authorities were doing for the welfare of the people.
Indeed, apart from anything that was said, it was clear for every
one to see the improvements in schools and hospitals, cleansing of
the villages and townships and the care of Holy Places, to all of
which the Israelis were devoting a considerable amount of time and
The U-81 student who differs in the interpretation of the methods pursued in confronting the
Communist Russian regime may be right in his view that there are some extreme condemnations. But
he also misinterpretes. No one charges Russia with conducting pogroms. On the contrary, we accuse the
USSR of -a cold pogrom, of having interrupted Jewish theatrical and journalistic efforts, of having de-
prived 3.000,000 Jews of the right to choose their cultural preferences. Of course Jews predominate
in the sciences in Russia: it is on that score that Russia uses these scientists as a front against Israel
and Zionism. But Russia. in the diabolical way of rejecting anti-Semitism, resorts to the euphemism, to
the substitution: it is Zionism that is the criminal factor, it is anti-Zionism they claim a right to rather
than anti-Semitism—and all the time it is anti-Semitism!
So—on this basis, the U-M defender of the Soviet Union follows exactly such a line and what he
had written is exactly like the bigotry that is embedded in what we have quoted above from the latest
news reports—that Trotsky was a Zionist, the Zionists collaborated in mass murder of Jews.
How deplorable that a young man, instead of informing himself about the courageous Jews who
are defying Russian bigotry, who now state frankly within the totalitarian sphere that they wish to go to
Israel and that 80,000 'families have declared similar intentions.
money.
How well this experience proves anew the need for proper communication, for the gathering and
All that is needed is the truth. Perhaps the venom that is spread so
presentation of facts so that our youth especially should not be misled into bias. It is primarily of the extensively now will be more easily refuted by more knowledgeable
utmost importance for us to teach our own youth. Then we can hope to reach the non-Jew with truth people.
that is so vital to amity. And once we establish truth we can hope for a change in the Kremlin position
of anti-Jewish prejudice.
2—Friday, April 3, 1970
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS