THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 18 Friday, September 7, 1979 LAWN SPRINKLER Underground Soviet Jewish Jornal and Its Editors Are Targets of the Kremlin REPAIRS NEW YORK (JTA) — The long-feared crackdown on the Russian Jewish un- derground journal "Jews in the USSR" has evidently begun with the arrest of one of its editors, Moscow refus- nik Igor Guberman, accord- ing to the Student Struggle NORTHLAND LAWN SPRINKLING RON BLOCK 355-3391 (home) 559-5980 (office) DISCO BALLET TAP JAZZ Classes Begin September 10 JACK BARNES B'harn 642-4292 THE 80's ARE ON THE WAY SAVE $$DOLLARS$$ ON GOOD SELECTION t l OF NEW 19 PONTIACS AND GMC TRUCKS AL STEINBERG ART MORAN PONTIAC 29300 TELEGRAPH JUST NORTH OF TEL-TWELVE MALL 353-9000 We Take The Worry Out Of DRAPERY CLEANING Drapery cleaning when properly done is an art, we at CUSTOM DRAPERY CLEANERS practice most diligently, in our never ending quest to improve our service to you by seeking better systems and methods. Don't take good drapery cleaning for granted. We at CUSTOM DRAPERY CLEANERS make good cleaning happen. • DRAPERIES • BEDSPREADS • LAMPSHADES (Cleaned, Recovered or Relined) (Cleaned or Laundered) WINDOW SHADES BLANKETS (Cleaned & Reversed) (Professionally Laundered) PILLOWS, new ticking & feathers or down added We Remove & Install CUSTOM DRAPERY CLEANERS 891-1818 Suburban call collect MOIL VISA' Learn to remember phone numbers, practice on EIGHT NINE ONE EIGHTEEN EIGHTEEN OZ for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ). Guberman, a 43-year-old writer of popular science ar- ticles for young people, has been accused under Article 208 of the RSFSR Criminal Code of dealing in icons sto- len from a church near Mos- cow. He could face seven years' imprisonment fol- lowed by five years' internal exile and confiscation of his property. The SSSJ and UCSJ said Jewish activists believed Guberman, who was twice refused an exit visa since he applied last December, was "set up" on a criminal charge to hide the political nature of his arrest. He is known in Moscow as an icon collector and an authority on old reli- gious art. But realizing that his connection with the Jewish "samizdat" could lead to trouble, he stopped purchasing icons three years ago. The editors of "Jews in the USSR," who list their names on each issue to pro- claim their belief that its publication is within Soviet law, have been harassed since its inception in 1973. Twenty issues of the typew- ritten journal have come out since then. A new wave of pressure began at the end of 1979, with KGB raids on the homes of editors in Moscow, Leningrad and Riga, and at- tempts to recruit informers among its contributors, promising rewards as trips abroad, the Soviet Jewry groups reported. The SSSJ adn UCSJ said that the content of "Jews in the USSR" is largly non- political, concentrating on articles on Jewish life and lore. Some are written by Jewish activists; others are translated from Western publications. Meanwhile, the final chapter in what the SSSJ and UCSJ called 'tone of the most tragic stories in the annals of the emigra- tion movement" played itself out last week when refusnik Dr. Victoria Pol- tinnikov hung herself in her Novosibirsk apart- ment. Officials at a local hospi- tal where she was recover- ing from severe malnutri- tion had made no move to prevent her from walking out. • Her physical state had become self-imposed when she and her mother, Dr. Irma Poltinnikov, were dri- ven to paranoia from seven years of exit denials and government harassments, then refused to believe they had finally received visas in January, and locked them- selves in their home. Irma Poltinnikov died of starvation there on Aug. 6. Victoria's father, Dr. Isaac Poltinnikov, had been un- able to either persuade his family to leave with him cr convince them he had actu- ally arrived in Israel in May to rejoin his second daugh- ter, Eleanora. Speaking by phone with SSSJ and UCSJ, Eleanora lashed out at the Soviet authorities "who knew what the end would be, but patiently waited for the result," since her sister and mother's mental states were "classic textbook cases." Under "strict Soviet law," she said, Vic- toria should have been placed under mental ob- servation as a would-be suicide. "Instead, they left her alone without control, and allowed her to leave. She walked out and nobody paid attention. They were ap- parently glad to see her go." Several days earlier, se- eing that the hospital physicians were ready to discharge her, Novosibirsk activist Felix Kochbiyevsky unsuccessfully pleaded with them to keep her further. In a related development, the Coalition for Alterna- tives in Jewish Education (CAJE), a grass roots organ- ization of more than 1,500 North American Jewish educators which is holding ifs fourth annual conference at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., an- nounced the formation of a chapter in the Soviet Union. The chapter is com- prised of 30 Jewish teachers in Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk, Kiev, Vilna, Kishinev, Tbilisi and three other cities. Most of these teachers were visited this summer by Barbara Pomerantz and Kurt Stone, two Cin- cinnati Hebrew educators and CAJE members who were tour- ing the Soviet Union. Upon their return to this country, Pomerantz and Stone briefed the CAJE board on the state of Jewish education in the USSR. The board then formally invited the 30 teachers to join the organization and attend its fourth conference. Although the teachers, many of whom are refus- niks, were not permitted to leave the Soviet Union, a hushed CAJE plenum lis- tened to a tape appeal from Lev Ulanovsky, a 29-year- old refusnik astrophysicist, who is now one of Moscows leading Hebrew teachers. "We have a tremendous shortage of educational material," Ulanovsky said. He appealed for books, tapes and other resources which, he added, "are a matter of life and death for the fu- ture of Jewish life and culture in Russia." The plenum voted to es- tablish a task force on Soviet Jewish education. The primary purpose of this task force will be to provide desperately needed educa- tional material for Soviet Jews. It will also offer such material to Soviet Jews in this country, and will estab- lish educational links be- tween North American Jewish teachers and stu- dents, and their Soviet counterparts. Returning Israelis Exceed Those Leaving the Country It is understood that the JERUSALEM (JTA) — For the first time in many gap between the Absorption years, the number of return- Ministry figures and that of ing Israelis exceeded that of the Jewish Agency stems Israelis leaving the country, from differences in defini- Absorption' Minister David tions. Levy included in his Levy said at a press confer- count all Israelis who had spent more than two years ence. Levy said that balance overseas as well as all those was reached last year when who returned married to 22,900 Israelis returned to new immigrants. If those the country, in comparison two groups are subtracted, to about 10,000 who leftithe the number of Israelis who country in the same period. spent more than four years He said 6,662 came back as overseas (the usual defini- part of a special program tion for yordim) and who re- launched by the Ministry of turn to Israel, the number is Absorption on the occasion 4,300. Using the same statistics, of Israel's 30th anniversary, with the assistance_of aliya Levy claimed that the and absorption institutions. number of returning Is- The others came back on raelis in the period dis- cussed exceeded in some their own. The plan to encourage Is- cases those of the number of raelis to return home began immigrants. For example, in January 1978 and is some 6,100 Israelis re- scheduled to end at the end turned from North of this month. According to America. The number of Levy, within the framework immigrants from that part of the plan, some 12,000 re- of the world was 5,125 in the turned in that period. Some -same period. Levy said that according 30 Israelis were returning to Central Bureau of Statis- daily, he said. But Jewish Agency tics figures, the number of sources said in reaction Israelis who left thecountry that only some 4,500 reg- last year and are expected to istered as returning Is- stay overseas for a longer raelis in the period dis- period did not exceed cussed. They did not 10,000, a decrease of 21 per- know how Levy compiled cent compared to the. year before. his figures.