2.7"..P.r. '1111•11111•1111111111111 ":.,001111111 ■ !...41111 ■-■••■ •••••• ■ Purely Commentary Readying for Community Action Jewish spokesmen wouldn't be worth their salt if they did not assert their readiness to battle against terrorist activities on all fronts. It is inconceivable that anyone with a spark of justice in his heart and common sense in his mind would in any sense condone what had happened in recent months under the exc ,, se o aiming to destroy Israel and thereby build independence for the terrorists. It is even reasonable to believe that many who had hitherto criticized Israel for retaliating will now support every move to uproot the bandits wherever they may be, whether it is in Lebanon or in Syria. Jordan's King Hussein has already demonstrated his ability to exile the bandits. Now, since it is necessary to fight the evil in many capitals of the world, there are added responsibilities upon heads of governments to exclude from their ranks every semblance of terrorist activities. Russia more than all others faces the most damaging charge of aiding and abetting terror. If Russia wills it and stops arming the murderers, there can be an end to the state of terror. Perhaps Red China then will follow suit and will stop providing Arabs with tools of destruction. Will the Arab potentates have enough sense to curb the terrorists in their midst, to oust them, to stop assisting them with means of de- struction and with comforting speeches? Tens of thousands of Arabs are under constant watch wherever they move in European countries. They are under suspicion everywhere. Their rulers in the Middle East can assist them in having the taint removed from them by asserting an assumption of a position of justice resembling civilized men. In the interim, there is the serious duty devolving upon Jews everywhere to be on guard and to join hands with Israel for the state's protection. We have -n urgent task ahead: to provide the means for Israel's sustenance. There is need for continuity of action in behalf of Israel. We have begun the coming year's work in our community by selecting two able men—Samuel Frankel and Paul Handleman—for the chairmanships of the Allied Jewish Campaign. We must labor to uphold their hands, to work with them for successful tasks in sending word to Israelis that we shall never let them down in the batte for justice. • Paul Zuckerman's New Dynamism Paul Zuckerman means business. When he became na- tional chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, less than a year ago, he had a high goal: he was to enroll at least 20 contrib- utors of $1,000,000 each and proceed from there to get in- creased giving on an expanded scale. He succeeded. The sums raised in 1972 set the highest record in UJA history. Then he introduced "Operation Israel" missions to Israel on an unprecedented scale: every mission meant increased giving for Israel and for Jewish rescue efforts everywhere. He is in Israel again—giving guidance to 300 visiting Americans on missions with constructive aims. He is tireless, he does (lot rest until the goals aspired to are reached, and it may well be that 1973 will be another record-breaking year in philanthropy. If it is, much of the credit will go to Paul Zuckerman, who has become the pride of Detroit and UJA's national scene. • • • The Innocence of a Reporter: Birobidjan Canard It is so easy to fall prey to exaggerations! An innocent Free Press reporter, the newspaper's women's editor, Dorothy Jurney, went to Birobidjan and interviewed one of the Communist Jewesses there who was understandably patriotic to her country's aims. So, the lady she quoted gave a fairly glorious account of the Birobidjan activities. But there is nothing in the story to justify a claim of the existence of a genuine Jewish republic there. That was the Stalin aim, but it never materialized because Jews who went there had settled under compulsion and he Jewish aspect is a mirage. There is a Jewish newspaper and it is filled with propaganda. Whatever is Jewish of its news is the Communist anti-Israel line. There aren't 30,000 Jews in Birobidjan but a maximum of 16,000, and they represent a minority. Would that Birobidjan had really served the claimed purpose when it was necessary to rescue Jews from the Hitler terror. Now it Is nothing more than a mirage, and it is unfortunate, even if it can happen understandably, that reporters should be misled into believing that a panacea has emerged in the Siberian clime of Russia. • • Ben - Gurion Has Earned Two Birthdays a Year - For non-Jews it was a curiosity: that although David Ben-Gurlon's birthday is on Oct. 16, he celebrated it on Monday (Sept. 25) because it was his birthday on the Jewish calendar. So, it was sensational news about the 86th birthday of the ar- chitect of the Jewish State. For many of us, however, it is a natural phenomenon: some of us have always been celebrating birth- days. anniversaries, special events —twice—on the civic calendar and on our luakh. For many it has meant good wishes received twice and gifts doubled! It's a pleasure to greet Ben-Gur- ion on his 86th birthday on the Jewish calendar—and we'll do it again on Oct. 16. Let's hope he gets two sets of presents. Ile has earned two birthdays a year and doubled presents. Ben-Gurion now divides his time between his home in Tel Aviv and as a Sde Boker kibutznik in the 13-G the Kibutznik Negev, He prefers the latter role, and it is his major love after leaving the premiership. Therefore, the appropriate photo for this affectionate note to him is his role as kibutznik. 2 — Friday, Sept. 29, 1972 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Solidarity for Humanity . . . the Simhat Torah Unifying Force for Kinship With USSR Jews By Philip Slomovitz Simhat Torah: A Day for Solidarity For many years, there has been a defiance of Soviet restrictions on Jewish religious ob- servances. On Simhat Torah, for many years, Jews had gathered in crowds, overflowing into the street adjoining. the Moscow syna- gogue. These had been demonstrations of loyalty to Jewish traditions. They combined the spiritual with the nationalist. They marked an adherence to a heritage many of the Russian Jewish youth were not thorough- ly acquainted with, nevertheless they pro- claimed their solidarity with the Jewish peo- ple everywhere, with emphasis on Israel and with an expressed desire to 'reclaim knowl- edge of Hebrew for ,lewry. This Simhat Torah will not be an excep- tion. It may prove an even greater emphasis on the people's desire to reclaim the legacies Russian Jews had been deprived of. To emphasize the solidarity, world Jewry will demonstrate with their kinsmen in the Soviet Union—on Simhat Torah and at public assemblies wherever Jews are domiciled. This Sunday, therefore, will be an historic day for unified Jewry. It will be a day on which to assert that tyranny is doomed to defeat, whether it is in the Soviet Union or areas invaded by criminally insane Arab terrorists, whether it is the act of anti-Semites in Euro- pean or Afro-Asian areas. • • • There needs to be a full understanding of a situation that compels the Simhat Torah call to action and the festival's emphasis on solidarity that will be aimed at on all days, all hours of every day on the calendar, until there is an end to barbarism, until there is an uprooting of terror and the driving of terror- sists into the oblivion marked for inhuman beasts who presently threaten the security of mankind. There are many examples of bestialities, those in the Soviet Union and the multiplied incidents that put to the test the Arab na- tions, their citizens wherever they may be dis- persed for evil deeds like those that marked abuse of postal privileges and resort to mur- der in Munich and at international airports. Here is a typical example involving a great scientist, Dr. Veniamin G. Levich, the world- famous electrochemist who has asked for a visa to leave Russia and to settle in Israel. The story is told in the prestigious magazine Science. Its a tale that should move every lib- erty-loving person to action in defense of the human right of any person to move wherever he wishes. It should encourage increased pro-. tests against the Soviet ransom schemes. It's Science's story about the Fourth In- ternational Biophysics Conference held in Moscow Aug. 7-14. As the Science story goes, "some of the activity during the (biophysics) meeting centered around someone who was not there"—and the reference was to Dr. Levich, who was described as follows: "An electrochemist, Levich has had his appli. cation for an exit visa to Israel denied. He has lost one of his jobs and been demoted in the other; his books and scientific pipers have been removed from circulation in Russia; even cita- tions of his work in the scientific literature have been deleted. Levich is a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the most prominent Russian scientist to suffer the harass- ment which appears to characterize treatment of some Russians attempting to go to Israel." Then Science proceeded to state that the magazine had secured a copy of a hand-writ- ten statement by Prof. Levich in which he protested against being barred from the Inter- national Biophysics Conference. This is how he appealed for help from the world scien- tific community in his hand-written revela- tions: • . . . The reason is quite obvious. The scien- tists who apply to the authorities for the permis- sion to leave for Israel are magically transformed into outcasts who are deprived of any right of continuing a scientific activity: publications for- bidden, lecturing forbidden, making scientific re- ports forbidden, even being cited forbidden. A person is immediately expelled from any kind of scientific councils, editorial boards, de- moted, and often fully discharged. A person is constantly living under the con. ditions of permanent pressure and anguish for the fate of his family and himself. As is known, the Soviet government gives a permission for repa- triation to many Jews, but (to) no scientists. The violation of the civil rights of scientists as comp- red to other people and the transfoma. Lion of scientists into the property of the gov- ernment is a dangerous precedent. TRday it is the fate of perhaps a small group of dentists at a certain place of the world. To- morrow it may happen to anybody and anywhere. The brains as well as the h"nds of any human being are his personal property. I believe as well that the persecution of scien- ti,,ts and the prohibition of their scientific activity as a punishment for their moil and conscience convictions is inhuman, immoral, and disgraceful. . The international scientific community, I believe, should not consider such problems as a personal affair of each of us, but as a problem .._ of the professional honor, dignity and humanism of all the scientists all over the world. This moving plea was supplemented by Science with an account of Dr. Levich's prob- lems and the manner in which they are being treated by his fellow scientists. While the Na- tional Academy of Science has not yet taken any action in his case, the NAS Council is viewing it and there is consideration of a joint statement issued by heads of national scientific academies to M. V. Keldysh, pres- ident of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Among British scientists who have acted in Levich by Sir Frederick Dainton, and another in biophysics, Sir Maurice Wilkins, president of the British Society for Social Responsibil- ity in Science, whose circulated petition pro- tests the Soviet treatment of Levich and other "recent attempts to harass Soviet scientists who disagree with officially accepted views." Like other academicians who expressed a desire to leave the USSR, Levich is not being abandoned. He has been offered a professorship by Tel Aviv University in its chemistry department, and the university has appealed to scientists all over the world to come to Levich's aid. Several hundred promi- nent scientists in this country, in Great Britain and other lands have appealed to the USSR that exit visas be granted to Dr. Levich and his son, Dr. Yevgeny Levich. A one-year post in the physical chemistry laboratory at Oxford has been offered to Levich by Sir Frederick Dainton, and another petition was circulated by D. B. Spalding of the department of mechanical engineering at Imperial College of Science and Technol- ogy in London calling on Soviet scientists "to abstain, if they can, from any further harass- ment of Prof. Levich and his family." The Science report on the Levich case con- cludes by indicating the following with an appended comment: "A number of those attending the Moscow biophysics meeting were able to visit with Levick and his family. One who did, Harold Scheraga sl Cornell, hid his luggage searched and his plane detained by 15 minutes at Kiev. Two National Institutes of Health researchers who saw Levich are Robert Adelstein and Jack Cohen. When Adelstein and Cohen visited with Levich, Levich drew them • graph which he said illustrated his Present situation. The z-axis was labeled time and the y - axis was labeled noise. Levich drew two curves on the graph; one rose above a cer- tain noise level and was labeled Israel. The other peaked below and was labeled jail or death. Both Adelstein and Cohen, as well as others who have been in contact with Levich, agree that more public forms of noise could help Levich. It could also prevent the Soviet au- thorities from turning the Levich case into a symbol in order to discourage other Russian scientists from trying to emigrate." Prof. Levich's story reads like an isolated case. But it is part of the tragedy of a large - number of scientists, of many thousands of Jews who insist upon the right to emigrate from the USSR but who are now under ran- som threats. Major responsibility in defense of those seeking human rights in Russia rests upon Jewish communities. That is why the Day of Solidarity with our kinsmen is so important. That is why Simhat Torah assumes an added role of great importance on our calendar. It is important that all of us observe it dili- gently and devoutly. In such union of solidar- ity lies our strength, and out of it will grow first comfort and eventually relief for perse- cuted Russian Jewry.