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)