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For details, write La Costa Greens, 2558 A Navarra Drive, Carlsbad, California 92008 or phone (714) 942-1005. The Jewish News Special Israel Correspondent TEL AVIV — The only Shulhan Arukh written in the Soviet Union has fallen into the hands of the KGB. Its secret police have scrutinized its pages care- fully, looking for counter- revolutionary ideas. .(The Shulhan Arukh — "Prepared table" — is a simplified synopsis of the Jewish laws, including the daily commandments, Sab- bath, festivals and Jewish dietary, domestic, civil and criminal law.) One of the two composers of the Russian Shulhan Arukh, Michael Schneider, a former officer in the Red Army, is living today in Jerusalem and studying the Holy Books. In his office, bearing the name "Shamir" — the Hebrew initials of the "Academic Organization of Russian Immigrants who observe the Jewish laws" — we can see a 300-page man- uscript called "I Believe." The second composer is Gershon Rosenstein, a former professor of bio- chemistry in the Soviet Union. The text of the book was transferred over many years from Moscow to Jerusalem by phone. The KGB agents listened to the talks, in which the text was transmitted to Prof. Yeremiahu Baranover. The Shulhan Arukh in Russian enabled every Russian reader to learn the chief principles of Jewry and Jewish laws. Schneider said, "I was born in Moscow in 1957. My father was a historian and specialist for Pushkin, my mother was an Army doctor who had served in Stalin- grad. I was seven years old when I first heard Russian children calling after me `Yid.' I asked my grand- mother why they were doing this. She told me that I was a 'Yid' and should be proud about it. It turned out that my grandfather was a Hasid but in our home there was no sign of Jewishness. "In High School I met some Jews, including teachers and pupils. Some of them spoke about the big Is- raeli victory in the Six-Day War." Schneider looked for books about Jewry. He be- came involved in a conflict with anti-Semitic teachers and was removed-from high school. He joined the Com- munist youth, but con- tinued to seek his Jewish identity. He started to learn Hebrew with the aid of a Russian encyclopedia. Af- terwards, he succeeded in obtaining the Hebrew book, "A Thousand Words." the visited He synagogue in Moscow, asked to be circumcized and learned all about Jewry. Rabbi Fishman refused to carry out the circumcision. He sent him to a teacher, who taught him the Bible and Talmud. Schneider found a smal- ler synagogue in Moscow, where Hasidim prayed. He met Abraham, a secret Chabad Hasid, who taught him how to pray. A few weeks later he was circum- sized. Schneider grew a beard and sidelocks. People thought that he was a tourist or a crazy man. Schneider continued CO study mathematics, Heb- rew books and Kabala. He took part in military exer- cises. Once he succeeded in listening to Israel Radio in Russian. Russian officers asked him about Israel and its army, but then he did not know much about it. At the Mathematics In- stitute he met his future wife, Lea. They got mar- ried in 1977, after Lea had promised to keep a re- ligious Jewish home. In 1980, Michael and Lea re- ceived permits to go to Is- rael. Now they are living in Jerusalem and have two children. Before coming to Israel, they worked in Moscow in a computer planning insti- tute. Once, during a break, Michael studied a Jewish book. It was a collection of talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Hebrew. His fore- man confiscated the book, arguing that it includes re- ligious propaganda forbid- den in the Soviet Union. About the second com- poser of the Russian Shulhan Arukh, Prof. Ger- shon Rosenstein, Schneider talks with enthusiasm. He is now 44 years old. For years he was a scientist with international fame in mathematical psychiatry. For 10 years he has asked the Soviet authorities to let him go to Israel, but they refuse, arguing that in his scientific work he had ac- cess to secret material. Rosenstein maintains that this material is now long obsolete. Schneider told us in- teresting stories about how he and his friend composed the Russian Shulhan Arukh. He says that Prof. Rosenstein wrote the main part of it and that his own contribution was limited. Schneider says that there is a big shortage in the Soviet Union of elementary Jewish books. He met Prof. Rosenstein accidentally in the synagogue in Mos- cow. In his first talk with him he learned that Prof. Rosenstein had already composed some Jewish works. Both decided to write a book about Jewish history, faith and law. After a year they finished the manuscript, which con- tained parts of Jewish his- tory, and a survey of Jewish religious books like the Prophets, Talmud, Zohar, Shulhan Arukh, etc. Part of the book was dedicated to Jewish prayers and usage and to Jewish holidays. The book was typed on stencils and distributed in Moscow. One copy was transferred secretly to Is- rael. Israeli religious experts have made some alterations in the book, which were transmitted in daily talks by telephone to Moscow. The KGB listened to the talks and followed the alt- erations. The book was printed in Israel by Shamir print- ing house, edited by Prof. Baranover. Some copies even arrived in Moscow secretly and were re- ceived with enthusiasm by Jewish circles. Special groups were organized to learn its principles of Jewry. Today Michael Schneider studies in a yeshiva in Jerusalem and his wife is working for a computer company. In the meantime, her parents have arrived from the Soviet Union, but his father, a professor, and his mother, a military doc- Force Wasn't Israel's Idea NEW YORK (JTA) — Is- rael's Consul General in New York Naphtali Lavie, said last week that Israel never requested the forma- tion of a temporary multi- national force in Lebanon nor the dispatch of U.S. marines to the area. But he said that once the suggestion had been put forward, his country was willing to consider it as a means to remove the PLO from Beirut and to help re- store authority to the Lebanese government. "Israel did not ask for American troops or for a multinational force," Lavie said. "This is something that should be known." He referred in this context to a statement he said an Egyp- tian source attributed to Egypt's Foreign Minister Kamal Hassan Ali, assert- ing that the PLO had re- quested the American in- tervention. At the same time, how- ever, the Consul General stressed that an Ameri- can presence was "very important" to Israel, and accused the PLO of exploiting his country's good will by using the negotiations as a means of stalling for time. Asked to comment on re- cent criticism of Israel's public relations perform- ance by Howard Squadron, former chairman of the Con- ference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Lavie chal- lenged Squadron's assertion that Israel responded too slowly to exaggerated re- ports of civilian casualties. He maintained that Is- rael publicized its own fig- ures as soon as they could be obtained, first based on hos- pital registraion and then, when its forces were able to clear through the rubble of Sidon, and other areas in the south, on their own in- vestigation. tor, can only keep up a cor- respondence with their son in Jerusalem. Michael Schneider says that he believes that his pa- rents will also come to Jerusalem. 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