20 Friday,
Friday, August 21, 1981
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Stalin Purges Culminated With
The Night of the Murdered Poets
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NEW YORK (JTA) —
Aug. 12 marked the 29th
anniversary of The Night
of the Murdered Poets." Re-
calling that tragic event
and the continuing Soviet
repression of Jewish culture
and emigration, Theodore
Mann, chairman of the Na-
tional Conference on Soviet
Jewry, said in a specially
prepared statement:
"Twenty-nine years ago,
on Aug. 12, 1952, in the
basement of Lubianka
Prison in Moscow, 24
Jewish writers, poets, ar-
tists, musicians and actors
were executed. Their mur-
der was the culmination of
an anti-Jewish campaign
during the 'black years' of
purges and repressions
which swept the Soviet
Union from 1948 to 1953.
Some of the victims were
survivors of the 400 Jewish
artists rounded up with
their families in the winter
of 1948-1949 and banished
to the gulag, where many of
them perished in labor
camps.
"No word of the August
1952 massacre reached the
world until after Stalin's
death three years later,
when the full implication-of
that dark day finally be-
came clear. 'The Night of
the Murdered Poets' was to
sound the death knell for
Jewish culture in the Soviet
Union.
"Today, almost three de-
cades later, another gen-
eration of Soviet Jews is
reaffirming its Jewish
heritage. Deprived of the
tools to learn about
Judaism — neither
schools, books nor other
material on Jewish his-
tory, art, literature, lan-
guage or religion are
available — they are
nevertheless gathering in
private homes for infor-
mal study groups. Their
hunger for knowledge of
their Jewish past re-
mains strong, in the face
of an increasingly hostile
environment.
"In recent months, the
harrassment and arrests of
participants in these self-
study groups have acceler-
ated alarmingly as the
authorities once more at-
tempt to stamp out Jewish
culture and identity 'in the
Soviet Union. Anti-
Semitism has become all-
pervasive in Soviet life,
stimulated and directed by
deliberate government
policies.
"Many Jews, who see that
the Soviet Union holds no
future for them, focus their
hopes on emigrating to Is-
rael. While they wait for
permission to leave, some
for over 10 years, they
watch anxiously as the
gates to freedom continue to
close. Meanwhile, the lead-
ers and organizers of the
seminars and those who
demonstrate and petition
for their right to emigrate,
are charged with random
`crimes' and sent to prison,
labor camps and exile.
Ken Sweder, chairman of
the Soviet Jewry Commit-
tee of the Jewish Commu-
nity Council of Metropoli-
tan Boston, noted that while
emigration figures dropped
this year to what may be an
all-time annual low, new -
trials against leaders in the
Soviet Jewish emigration
movement have been
started in recent weeks.
These, he said, include
the sentencing of Dr. Viktor
Brailovsky, Vladimir Kis-
lik, Kim Fridman and
Stanislav Zubko.
In addition, Sweder said,
scheduled to be tried are
Evgeny Lein of Leningrad,
Boris Chernobilsky of Mos-
cow, and Vladimir Tsuker-
man and Osip Lokshin of
Kishinev. Chernobilsky has
fled Moscow and is now un-
derground in a dramatic ef-
fort to show the world that
his scheduled trial would
have been a aravesty ofjus-
tice."
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Hebron dates back to 1727 b.c.e. as a Jewish settlement.
Our Jewish forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and
their wives are buried in Hebron. David was anointed
King of Israel in Hebron. Hebron has had its Jewish popula-
tion destroyed on several occasions: 1929 by Arab rioters
who killed 67 men, women and children and wounded 60
others. The community was resettled in 1931 but was
destroyed by the Arab unheavals of 1936. It was liberated
by Israel in the Six Day War of June 1967, and today there
is a new Jewish settlement in Hebron called Kiriath Arba.
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• Guest Speakers
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• Information Booths
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• Bring Your Family & Friends
For more information call 357-5449.
Sponsored by the Jewish Defense League of Detroit.
JEWISH
DEFENSE
LEAGUE
JERUSALEM (JTA) —
The World Zionist Organ-
ization's information de-
partment will establish an
international task force to
combat anti-Zionism, Eli
Eyal, head of the depart-
ment, told the WZO Execu-
tive last week.
The task force, he said,
will include all organiza-
tions that fight anti-
Semitism and are active on
behalf of Israel.
Eyal, in briefing the WZO
Executive on the activities
of the department, said that
the Zionist movement must
undertake the task of lead-
ing the fight against anti-
Zionism which today is an
expression of anti-
Semitism. He noted that the
1975 United Nations reso-
lution which equated
Zionism with racism
encouraged rampant anti-
Zionism around the world
and intensified classical
anti-Semitism.
The reality, Eyal
added, is that anti-
Zionism has become the
current substitute for
what was at one time
crude anti-Semitism.
The department, in coop-
eration with organizations
dealing with Zionist and Is-
raeli information overseas,
has prepared an informa-
tional document on the sub-
ject of Zionism which in-
cludes the ideological back-
ground to the Anti-Zionist
campaign.
Also planned are sym-
posia and audio-visual
material on Zionist topics.
Israel Radio's overseas serv-
ice will soon begin broad-
casting a series of lectures
on Jewish, Zionist and Is-
raeli subjects. This will be a
joint venture of the WZO in-
formation department and
Tel Aviv University, Eyal
said.
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