28 Friday, December 30, 1977 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Bnai Brith Study Says Soviet Union Conducts Worldwide
Hate Campaign of Slander in All Media Against Jewry
WASHINGTON—The
Soviet Union is embarked
on a systematic campaign
of slander against world
Jewry, dredging up the
themes of the discredited
czarist forgery, - The
Protocols of the Elders of
Zion," and throwing in a
few other—and
incredible—wrinkles in
attempts to "prove" its
point.
In a 27,000-word study
just published by Bnai
Brith, Dr. William Korey,
director of the
organization's International
Council's New York office
and a specialist in Soviet
affairs, reports that while
the Soviet campaign
assumes the guise of an
attack on racism, it is
pure-and.-simple
anti-Semitism.
The massive campaign
began in 1967 and has been
gaining momentum ever
Since, acquiring, according
to Korey, "the smell of
pogrom." It acquired an
official and all-pervasive
character in 1971,
according to Korey's study,
"The Soviet 'Protocols of
the Elders of
Zion':Anti-Semitic
Propaganda in the USSR,
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With the eager
cooperation of the Arab
nations and the Third
World, the Soviets have
tried to use the blatant
libel of equating Zionism
with racism as means of
securing moral sanction in
the United Nations for its
campaign.
The menacing tone of the
Soviet campaign was set in
an article in Pravda on
Feb. 18,- 1971. "A person
who turns to the Zionist
belief automatically
becomes an agent of
international Zionism, and,
hence, an enemy of the
Soviet people," the Pravda
piece said.
Subsequent articles
bearing the imprimatur of
various official Soviet
organs and agencies follow
the themes put forward by
the infamous Protocols:
Zionist bankers are _ to
blame for the ills of
society, colonialism,
imperialism, militarism,
crime, prostitution, the
counter-revolution of the
Russian civil war, the
Czechoslovakian reformist
movement, the defeat of
the Arabs by Israel in 1967.
Among those - Zionist
bankers" the Soviets
include the Rockefellers.
Incredibly, Jewish
Zionists are even accused
of forming an alliance with
Hitler!
Korey asserts that the
campaign reached its peak
in its flight from reality in
1967, whem Komsomolskaia
Pravda, the
mass-circulation newspaper
of the Young Communist
League, described its
enemy as an. "invisible but
huge and mighty empire of
financiers and
industrialists." Zionism is
the lackey "at the beck and
call of the rich master
whose nationality is
exploitation and whose_god
is the dollar," the article
declared.
The author of this article
documented his thesis with
unusual and
unsubstantiated claims. He
asserts, for instance, that
there are 20 to 25 million
Zionists in the United
States—despite the fact
that there are only six
million Jews there. He also
claims that 69 percent of
all U.S. physicists are
Zionists, "including those
engaged in secret work on
the preparation of weapons
for mass destruction"; 43
percent of all U.S.
industrialists are Zionists
and Zionists own 80 percent
of the big publishing houses
in America.
The specificity of these
claims made them suspect,
Korey says, and reports
that investigation reveals
that they were first
published in 1957 in an
obscure pamphlet by one
Saleh Dasuki of Cairo. -
"Specialists in the field
of hate propaganda
recalled that in 1957 Cairo
had set up a veritable
factory for the production
of anti-Semitic literature,"
Korey says, adding that it
operated under the
direction of Johannes von
Leers, a former employee
of Nazi propaganda
minister Joseph Goebbels.
Von Leers had adopted the
Arabic name of Omar
Amin.
The Pravda article
opened the floodgates,
Korey declares. By 1972,
with the publication of
"The_ School of
Obscurantism" in "The
USSR Bulletin," Judaism
and Israel were for the
first time linked in the
indictment.
Korey reports that the
vilification was not
restricted to the written
word. - It was also
extended to the lecture
platform - he says,
describing that mode of
communications as "one of
the most powerful means of
propaganda" in-the USSR.
The source of its power lay
in its official sanction and
its popularity, drawing
millions of listeners -in the
course of a single year.
The anti-Zionist
campaign compared in
viciousness to that of
Hitler, -Korey says, citing
Vladimir Begun's - The
Creeping
BRENNAN • "TRUMAN CAPOTE • 6,411•IS COCO • il-rfl•IR FALK• ALEC GUINNFSS
Counter-Revolution."
Begun, he reports,
described the Torah as "an
unsurpassed textbook of
blood-thirstiness, hypocrisy,
treason, perfidy and moral
degeneracy." Begun viewed
Zionism as "the directing
force for world
domination" and excused
the anti-Semitic outbreaks
of czarist Russia as part of
the class struggle against
"oppressors."
By 1974, Soviet
propagandists dropped the
distinction between Zionists
and Jews. In one article
cited by Korey, almost 400
members of the U.S. House
of Representatives-92
percent of the
membership—are said to
be "representatives of
Jewish capital or persons
who in one way or another
are connected with it." The
article adds that 70 of 100-
senators also support
Jewish capital.
Since then,. Korey
reports, the Soviets have
intensified their campaign,
mounting their smears at
every opportunity but
especially in United
Nations forums with its
"Zionism is racism" libel.
At home, it has stepped up
its virulence in print and
on the air.
"The Soviet Union is the
largest center for the
production and distribution
of anti-Jewish hate
material," Korey declares.
Through the machinery of
the state, the bloodstream
of Soviet life has been
polluted by anti-Semitic
propaganda, he says. What
makes all this ironic.
Korey notes, is that
anti-Semitism is not in the
Bolshevik tradition of
classical Marxism nor
consistent with the tenets
of Lenin and Stalin.
Meanwhile, the Soviet
magazine Literaturnaya
Gazeta indicated that
Western appeals on behalf
of Anatol), Sharansky,
Soviet dissident imprisoned
on a trumped-up charge of
treason, will have no effect
on the status of his
imprisonment.
In a related development,
Soviet Jews staged a
hunger strike and called for
the release of all prisoners
of conscience from Soviet
labor camps in a
demonstration in Moscow
last week.
The strike was called to
mark the seventh
anniversary of the trial of
Jewish activists accused of
trying to hijack a Soviet
airliner in a futile attempt
to get to Israel.
Eleven Jewish dissidents
were given death or prison
sentences in the trial in
Leningrad, although the
death sentences were later
commuted to long prison
terms.
it also was reported that
Alexander Roisman," a
leading refusnik from
Novosibirsk, has received.
permission to emigrate to
Israel. The Student
Struggle for Soviet Jewry
and the Union of Councils
for Soviet Jews said the
50-year-old mechanical
engineer had been
campaigning for five years
to leave the USSR.
The Detroit Committee
for Soviet Jewry joined
many of its counterparts in
the Union of Councils for
Soviet Jewry in the passage
of a resolution urging
American Jews to protest
the harassment of Soviet
Jews by "examining their
consciences" prior to
attending Soviet cultural
events presented here.
The resolution stated in
part:
"Whereas, the Detroit
Committee for Soviet
Jewry deems it
unconscionable for
American Jews to support
Soviet cultural diplomacy;
"We resolve that failure
to protest these events
constitutes indifference to,
or worse, tacit approval of,
the continuing harassment
of Soviet Jews.
"Therefore, be it
resolved, that we call upon
the American Jewish
community to stand in
solidarity with the
oppressed Jews of the
Soviet Union by examining
their conscience before
attending or supporting
Soviet cultural or sporting
events."
In a related development,
Luba Zlotver
Bar-Menahem, a young
Soviet Jewish immigrant
living in Israel, was in
Detroit recently to appeal
on behalf of her
cancer-stricken father who
has been denied an exit
visa.
Peace May Save Egyptian Jews
By MAURICE SAMUELSON
LONDON (JTA) — If Egypt
and Israel make peace it may
be just in time to prevent the
death of one of the world's
oldest Jewish communities.
For Egyptian Jewry is now at
its lowest ebb since the
community was established
after the fall of the First
Temple in 87 BCE.
Most Jews of Jerusalem
went to Babylon, but a
minority, including the
prophet Jeremiah, fled to
Egypt.
In the 25 centuries which
followed, the Jews of Egypt
were to know periods of
prosperity and decline. But
they have probably never been
closer to extinction than they
are now.
During the persecutions by
the Mamelukes 500 years ago,
travelers reported fewer than
1,000 Jewish families in Cairo.
But today, Cairo's community
is reduced to about 180 people,
nearly all of them either
widowed or elderly, with
another 150 in Alexandria.
Except for some assimilated
or intermarried individuals,
they are all that are left of
the 65,000 Jews listed in the
census of 1947.
Most of the survivors are
retired. Some lost their
livelihood as a result of
persecution during the rule of
Gamal Abdel Nasser. They
include Nissim Rossano, 75. ,
sacked from the Cairo Bourse
during the Six-Day War. A
third generation Egyptian, his
wife has died and he shares a
flat with his widowed
sister-in-law in Kasr El Nil St.
in the center of Cairo.
Emile Pinto, 72. is chairman
of the Adly St. Synagogue. A
former weaving factory
representative. he devotes
much of his time to synagogue
activities. He has an
80-year-old sister in
Manchester, England, whom
he visited two years ago.
Pinto told me sadly of the
waves of emigratiOn since
1948, and the persecutions
culminating :n the internment
of Jewish males, after ,t1,-le
Six-Day War. Now. he told
me. the community boasts
only two doctors, two lawyers
and one comfortable
businessman — 75-year-old
Felix Iscaki, president of the
community.
Yet when speaking to men
like Rossano and Pinto I
understood why, although
reduced to a handful. Cairo's
Jewish community had
miraculously survived and
was able to greet its brothers
from Israel after President
Sadat's historic Jerusalem
journey.
Thanks to the efforts of
Iscaki and others, the Adly St..
Synagogue functions as a
living house of prayer for
Sabbaths and festivals.
Memorial lights are kindled
for the dead and. I was
assured, Cairo's many other
synagogues still stand, even
though their former_ members
are scattered all over the
world. The tiny community
even maintains a home for
elderly inform people in
Heliopolis.
Nothing is impossible,"
declared Rossano as Israeli
and other Jewish journalists
filled the synagogue two
weeks ago. With tears in his
clear blue eyes, he recalled
his visit to Israel long before
1948, when it was called "The
Jewish National Home" and
when Meir Dizengoff, Tel
Aviv's first mayor, was still in
office.
"What we need most of all
is a rabbi, - said Pinto as he
showed me the week's portion
in one of the synagogue's 15
Torah scrolls in their
handsome caskets. That and
peace which will surely
bring new Jews — Israelis and
others — back to Egypt. If the
peace hopes collapse. even a
rabbi may be unable to save
this once great community
from disappearing completely.
-1-
Students' Adviser
PHILADELPHIA — The
Reconstructionist Rabbinic-
al College has named Rabbi
Rebecca Trachtenberg Al-
pert to advise rabbinical
students on their secular
studies and community
service programs.