5
"Igrynajogues Enroll) as Zionist Corporate Affiliates
FiVe
' ngregations — two Reform and three Conservative —
became corpk.
nbers of the American Zionist Federation, through
the Detroit Zion.
eration.
Carmi M. Sib.
tz, president of the Detroit Zionist Federation, an-
nounced that Temple eth El and Temple Israel became lead,_. : in the
.
A Jew in
Communist
Prisons . . .
Amos Elon
Views Israel's
Civilian Society
Book Rieviews by
Boris Smolar and
Charlotte Dubin,
Pages 2 and 48
Vol. LIX.
Reform movement to join the movement in accordance with the new na-
tional policies.
The three Conservative synagogues that have joined the American
federated Zionist movement are Shaarey Zedek, Bnai Moshe and Beth
Moses.
THE JEWISH NEWS
Michigan Weekly
Review of Jewish News
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
No. 15
17515-W. 9 Mile Rd., Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075
356-8400
Reorganized
Jewish Agency
Bedfellows
in Venom
Truman's
Humanitarianism
Editorials
Page 4
$8.00 Per Year; This Issue 25c June 25, 1971
'Inquiry Commission' Exposes USSR
Inherited Anti-Semitism, Demands
Justice and Right of Exit for Jews
Presidents Conference Called
`Servile . by Leaders of CCAR
ST. LOUIS (JTA)—The leadership of the Reform Movement
blasted the Conference of Presidents -of Major American Jewish
Organizations • Monday night as cowardly and servile, and called
instead for "a structure in which decision-making would be shared by
the presidents with communities from which the richest resources
fom our academic disciplines, from our communal leaders, from
our youth would be drawn."
In a "joint message" to the 82nd annual convention of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis, President Roland B. Gittel-
sohn and Vice President David Polish declared that such a new
structure would be "expanded beyond the consultation of presidents
alone and the calling of emergency meetings in Washington; and
would also "emancipate itself from the discredited postures of
Galut servility."
Rabbi Gittelsohn and Rabbi Polish said that despite the "objec-
tionable tactics" of the Jewish Defense League, "the denunciation
of the (JDL) to the President of the United States by some leaders
of the Jewish establishment was craven and obsequious."
If denunciation of the JDL was thought necessary, the Reform
leaders continued, "the addressee should have been American Jewry,
not the office of the President, whose earlier apology to Prime
Minister (sic) Pompidou (of France) for American Jews compounds
our pain and chagrin."
The first reference was to a Washington meeting last December
at which Dr. William A. Wexler, president of Bnai Brith and chair-
man of the Conference of Presidents; Max M. Fisher, chairman of
the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds; and Rabbi
Herschel Schacter, chairman of the American Jewish Conference
on Soviet Jewry, advised high administration officials that they dis-
sociated themselves from JDL activities.
The second reference was to President Nixon's personal apology
early last year to President Georges Pompidou of France after
peaceful Jewish demonstrations in American cities protested Porn-
pidou's embargo on Mirage jets already paid for by Israel. Rabbis
Gittelsohn and Polish commented: "No American bishops have been
constrainedito apologize to the White House for the Berrigans (anti-
war activists), nor has the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People apologized for Eldridge Cleaver (expatriate
Black Panther official), and therein lies the surest proof that Ameri-
can Jewry, which has presumably made it, feels more insecure than
does the alienated Black community."
Summing up, the CCAR leaders wrote that while the Presidents
Conference "has striven to expand its scope and its influence," it
(Continued on Page 6)
(Bulletin: Senator Robert Griffin informed The Jewish News on Thursday morning,
on. the basis of information from the State Department, that Dr. Mikhail Zand and his
family were expecting to leave the USSR on renewed exit visas either Thursday or today.)
NEW YORK—Three of the USSR's leading scientists—including Andrei Sakharov,
nuclear physicist and head of the Soviet Committee for Human Rights—have called on
the Kremlin to "end the persecution" of Jews seeking to emigrate from Russia and to
"stop violating the right to leave the country."
A copy of their appeal, written as a letter to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
in Moscow and dated May 20, 1971, was smuggled out of the USSR by Rep. Bertram
Podell (D. Brooklyn) during a visit to the Soviet Union last month.
'Congressman Podell presented the document to the "Commission of Inquiry" into
the rights of Soviet Jews Tuesday at the Carnegie Endowment International Center.
The Sakharov letter charged Soviet authorities with "illegitimate actions in
hindering the free departure of people from the Soviet Union — specifically, the free
repatriation of Jews to Israel."
It protested the Kremlin's "unexplained and arbitrary refusals to issue visas,"
charged that Soviet "red tape" in processing emigration "has no basis in law" and called
on the presidium to use its "constitutional right of pardon" to dismiss the criminal cases
of Jews awaiting trial and convicted for "anti-Soviet activity."
The letter was written by Valery Chelidze, a Soviet physicist who joined last year
with Sakharov, a world-renowned nuclear physicist, and A. Tverdokhlebov, another
prominent physicist, in founding the Soviet Committee for Human Rights. Chelidze,
Sakharov and Tverdokhlebov are not Jewish.
The letter makes these major points:
1. "Protests bring results" and re-
Congressmen Ask VOA to Include
cently "there has been a change in the
situation," despite the 'authorities' dis-
Yiddish in Broadcasts to USSR
pleasure with the desire of part of the
Pointing to the many native language programs
Jewish population for repatriation."
being beamed to minority groups in the Soviet
2. "Zionism is portrayed in the press
Union, Congressman William Broomfield of Michi-
as an anti-Communist and anti-Soviet
gan has joined more than 70 colleagues in co-
trend, yet the concerns of Zionism are
sponsoring a resolution calling on Voice of America
entirely national." The letter declares
to start broadcasting to Soviet Jewry in the Yid-
that "one can only admire the persis-
dish language.
tence of an ancient and persecuted peo-
The measure has been referred to the House
Foreign Affairs Committee "and I am hopeful,"
ple, who in very difficult conditions
said Broomfield, "that we will see early and favor-
have resurrected a long-vanished state.
able action in Congress in support of these valiant
It is precisely such rebirth and elimina-
people who are fighting for their rights." The Re-
tion of the tragic consequences of dis-
publican from Oakland County said that native
persion for the Jewish people that
language programs are beamed to minority groups
constitute the goal of Zionism."
much smaller than the 3,000,000 Jews living in
3. "The authorities' illegitimate ac-
Russia.
tions in hindering . . . the free repatria-
Support for Yiddish broadcasts has come from
tion of Jews to Israel" have led to
both houses of Congress and on both sides of the
(Continued on Fage 3)
(Continued on Page 21)
Million at Poverty Level Refutes Jewish Affluence Claim
CHICAGO (JTA)—The mythical
affluence of American Jews is, to
a surprising extent, a myth per-
- petuated in part by the Jewish
- community which until recently
has been blind to the large areas
of poverty among fellow Jews all
over the country.
That disclosure was made here
by Mrs. Anne Wolfe, a sociologist
and program consultant in the
intergroup relations and social ac-
tion department of the American
Jewish Committee.
In a paper entitled "The Invisible
Jewish Poor," delivered at the an-
nual dinner meeting of the AJCom-
mittee's Chicago chapter, Mrs.
Wolfe revealed that nearly 1,000,000
American Jews live at or near the
poverty level.
Mrs. Wolfe gleaned her informa-
tion from studies of numerous sur-
veys and statistics compiled over
several years by national, local
and Jewish groups.
"We find significant indication
of the extent of poverty in the
Jewish community from the Na-
tional Opinion Research Survey
on income related to religion"
which, Mrs. Wolfe said, "ascer-
tained that 15.3 per cent of Jew-
ish households had income under
$3,000 a year" compared to 15.6
per cent of Catholic and 22.7 per
cent of Protestant households.
"Fifteen per cent of $6,000,000
people is a large number," Mrs.
o 1- f e remarked, representing
700,000-750,000 people. She point-
ed out that if the figures for the
"near poor"—those earning un-
der $4,500 a year—were added,
the number of Jewish poor would
be much greater, exceeding
900,000.
Thus, while surveys continue to
find that the median income of
American Jews on the whole is
higher than the general national
median income, there is more pov-
erty among Jews per capita than
among either Catholics or Protes-
tants, Mrs. Wolfe's paper revealed.
(The Bureau of Labor Statistics
Lower Living Standard estimates
that a family of four should have
a minimum annual income of
$6,500. This is a national average.)
Mrs. Wolfe noted that the prob-
lem of Jewish poverty was related
to the lower death rate among
Jews at younger ages and the
lower birth rate among Jewish
families which results in a larger
number of elderly people in the
Jewish population than in the gen-
eral population.
"The community studies reveal
that something like 60 to 65 per
cent of Jews living in poverty are
over 60 or 65 years of age," Mrs.
Wolfe stated. The major problem
(Continued on Page 5)