Revealing Statistics
About USSR Jewry
Decline in population
and use of Yiddish
shown in JTA
demographic study
.. . Page 52
Erev Shavuot
Ruminations
About Devotions,
Synagogues
Amos Elon's
'The Israelis'
JEWISH NEWS
Confrontation
by Israel
to World Peril
Commentary
Page 2
Vol. LIX. No. 10
`Israel With
a Smile'
Newest in
Hebrew
Conversation
.
Series .
Page 52
Michigan Weekly
Review of Jewish News
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
e
° 27
17515 W. 9 Mile Rd., Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075
356-8400
$8.00 Per Year; This Issue
Pragmatism, marks
important volume on
the Israeli 'Fathers
and Sons' . . . Review
on Page 2.
Courageous
Mich. Prosecutor
Battles for
Russian Jewry
And End to 'Mildly'
Political Schemes
Editorials
Page 4
25c
May 21, 1971
Mrs. Meir Again Rejects Rogers
Plan; Pullback Denied by Dayan
Zand's Visa Withdrawn, Must
Wait for New Action Friday;
Senators Ask for - His Release
A report received Tuesday night by Prof. Herbert Paper of the
department of languages at the University of Michigan, from Prof.
Bernard Lewis of the University of London, that Prof. Mikhail Zand
again was humiliated and was advised to go to a hospital instead
of pressing for an exit visa to Israel, inspired new action in behalf
of the Russian Jewish scholar. Scores of cables were sent appealing
for his release. Senators Robert Griffin and Philip Hart of Michigan
and Man Cranston of California cabled the U.S. Embassy in Moscow
urging intercession for Zand. The State Department Russian desk
is on the alert, and other national leaders joined in efforts to provide
assistance to Prof. Zand, his family and 20 others who had their
exit visas canceled soon. after they had been issued by the USSR.
An urgent plea also was sent to Ambassador Jacob Beam in Moscow
on Thursday by Senators Griffin, Cranston and Jacob Javits.
LONDON (JTA)—Soviet officials are resorting to stalling tactics
on the issuance of a new visa to Prof. Mikhail I. Zand to replace the
one they revoked last Friday only hours after it was issued, it was
learned here Wednesday. Zand, a specialist in Oriental languages and
an activist for Jewish emigration rights, was told to apply for a new
visa on Tuesday. When he showed up at the Moscow Ovir (visa office)
Tuesday he was told to come back Friday.
Zand learned that his visa had been canceled after he had rushed
to make travel arrangements for himself and his family to Israel
via Vienna. He was told by officials that complaints of "undesirable
activities" were made against him, apparently the result of his
conversations with Western visitors, and that he could not leave
until they were investigated. Last week Zand seemed confident he
would get a new visa on Tuesday. He sold his belongings and re-
nounced his Soviet citizenship in anticipation of going to Israel and
was reportedly told he was now officially a "stateless person."
(A cable urging intervention on behalf of Zand was sent from
Los Angeles to the president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences by
Dr. Albert Gottschalk, president of Hebrew Union College and other
members of the Southern California academic community. The Soviet
academician was asked to use his good - offices to help "this learned
gentle scholar and his family to be allowed to leave for Israel.")
A verdict is expected today in the Leningrad triat of nine Jews
• 'accused of plotting to hijack a Soviet airliner last June and of anti-
(Continued on Page 38)
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Premier Golda Meir said in the Knesset Wednesday that her
government continues to reject the Rogers Plan calling for Israel's return to its pre-June
1967 boundaries, and has made that clear to all U.S. representatives with whom it has - had
contact recently and to United Nations Mediator Gunnar V. Jarring. Mrs. Meir spoke in
reply to a question by Mordecai Ben Porat, an MK representing the Labor alignment.
There was no indication when Mrs. Meir would deliver her report to the .Knesset
on her recent talks in Jerusalem with Secretary of State
William Rogers and Assistant Secretary Joseph Sisco. She
Elrom's Abductors
had been expected to make the report directly after
Warned by Turkey
Rogers' departure but it was postponed to a later, as yet
unannounced, date.
(Detroiter Max M. Fisher, confidant of President
Nixon, on Wednesday reiterated his confidence that the
White House is anxious for an early solution of the Middle
East problem without harm to Israel. Contrary to frequent-
ly expressed views in the press and in some reports from
Israel, he told The Jewish News he believes that Egyptian
President Sadat would welcome peace and that Rogers
and Sisco are striving towards exerting the added influ-
ence upon him to that end).
Replying to questions on tht- situation of Soviet Jews,
Mrs. Meir said the Israel governMent was aware of numer-
ous cases of physical injury to Jews who had applied for
visas to emigrate to Israel. She said there were also many
cases of abusive anonymous letters received by Jews seek-
ing emigration. She said that when complaints were made
to the authorities, the Jews were told "we do not deal with
anonymous letters." Mrs. Meir said her government was
doing all it could to bring these incidents to the attention
of "those who can help."
EPHRAIM ELROM
Abductors of Ephraim Elrom,
Israel's consul general in Istan-
bul, Turkey, were warned by the
Turkish government that the
revolutionary guerrillas would
be executed unless the Israeli
is released. Many arrests have
already been made to counter-
act the threat that Elrom would
be killed on Thursday.
(Story on Page 5)
Dayan Denies Making Pullback Proposals
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Defense Minister Moshe Dayan
has denied that he made any specific proposals to U. S.
Assistant Secretary Joseph J. Sisco for an Israeli pullback
from the Suez Canal. Premier Golda Meir's office also
denied reports that any such Israeli proposal was con-
veyed to the •U. S. Press reports Friday said that Dayan
had suggested to Sisco a week earlier that Israel withdraw
about 18.6 miles from the east bank of the canal as part
of an interim agreement to reopen the waterway. He
(Continued on Page 10)
U.S. District Attorneys Ask USSR to End Secret Trials; Genesee
Prosecutor R.F. Leonard Initiates Nationwide Defense Campaign
As a result of the visit to the Soviet Union of two of
s members, the National District Attorneys Association
has called on the Soviet procurator general to put an end
to the secret trials and incommunicado imprisonment of
Jews seeking exodus.
Genesee County Prosecut-
ing Attorney Robert F. Leon-
ard, who spent 16 days in the
Soviet Union along with New
York District Attorney Eu-
gene Gold, was in Detroit
Monday for a Jewish News
interview, as well as a lunch-
eon coordinated by the Jew-
ish Community Council.
(Among the groups repre-
sented at the luncheon were
the National Council of Negro
Women, Detroit Council of
Churches, UAW-International,
Detroit Roundtable of Chris-
tians and Jews and the Co-
Leonard
ordinating Council on .Human Rights.)
Leonard said the letter to Roman Rudenko.in Moscow
represents the unanimous opinion of the National District
Attorneys Association, comprised of prosecuting attorneys
of virtually every city and municipality in the U.S.
Although the letter does not refer to Soviet anti-Semit-
ism by name, it does call foi "elimination of racial and re-
ligious persecution whatever its form and wherever it may
arise." Signed by William B. Randall, president of the as-
sociation, the letter expresses concern that the present trial
in Leningrad is "even less public" than that held late last
year. Some 23 Soviet Jews arrested since last June are
on, or await, trial.
Further, the letter requests that a member of the asso-
ciation be allowed to attend the trials as an observer.
Leonard, a Catholic, and Gold, a Jew, met with high
officials and with the families of imprisoned Jews on their
journey to Kishinev, Moscow, Riga and Leningrad. (They
also visited Kiev, but merely to establish their status as
"tourists.")
Insistent that the issue is one of justice for all men,
.
not only Jews, Leonard is prepared to carry his message
to many other cities, because what he sees in the Soviet
Union today is "a genocide wrapped in a veil of legality."
"We're getting the same, indifferent response," he
added, "that we saw during the Second World War'in Nazi
Germany." He called the Leningrad trial "phony," and
said that if the evidence had been substantiated and the
prisoners confessed, there would have been no need for
a secret trial.
"There are three points the Soviets are trying, to get
across," Leonard said. "First, they know the world is
repulsed by the word 'hijacking.' Second, they imply that
the prisoners confessed when they did not. Third, they are
saying that Israel is involved. If they can successfully
convey these ideas, they have won their propaganda cam-
paign. And when the world press prints these ideas, it is
promulgating the lie."
Among the most significant portions of the 39-page
report written by Leonard and Gold on their return was
that relating to a meeting with Mikhail Zand, the noted
professor of Oriental languages who had been jailed, drop-
ped from hiS academic post and threatened with other
harassments for wanting to emigrate to Israel.
Despite many reports to the contrary, Zand believes
there is a rebirth of religion in the Soviet intellectual
community because "every man needs something to feed
his soul and . .. in this search for truth and to meet the
need to feed his soul, man ultimately. reaches God."
(Continued on Page 6)