Friday, May 6, 1983 31 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Trial for Soviet Jewish Hebrew Teacher Due Next Week NEW YORK (JTA) — Thrice arrested Moscow Hebrew teacher and Jewish emigration activist losif Begun might go on trial next week, it was reported by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Begun, 56, has been as- signed a lawyer by the authorities and his case is expected to be given to the local prosecutor this week. The assignment of a lawyer came after a friend of Be- gun's was unable to find one for him. Charged with "anti- Soviet agitation and prop- aganda," Begun is threatened with a possible seven years in a labor camp and five years in internal exile. A mathematician and holder of a Candidate of Sci- ences degree, he had been waiting for permission to emigrate to Israel for more than a decade. He has served two years in prison and in exile in Siberia. In another develop- ment, the National Con- ference said it has re- ceived reports of addi- tional meassures which further jeopardize the lives of those who have applied to leave. Vulnerable to dismissal from their jobs once they have submitted their docu- ments to the visa office, Jews are now threatened by a Redundancy Law: those people holding managerial positions will be fired or demoted to blue collar jobs in an effort to streamline what is viewed as "top heavy bureaucracy." If fired, their chances of being imprisonered are greater than before. Mean- while, the Parasite Law was also tightened so that a per- son who is without work for two months, rather than four months, as the law previously stipulated, can be tried as a "parasite." Obtaining work will also be harder. Reports suggest that the greater Moscow Region is being extended beyond the suburban vil- lage of Strunino, thus forc- ing those now allowed to re- side within Moscow city limits to live further away - from the center. In Pittsburgh, Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.) charged that the Soviet Union is "engaged in an attempt to spiritually annihilate all that is Judaic." Heinz, • addressing the opening session of the 83rd national convention of the Zionist Organization of America, told the 500 dele- gates assembled to pay tribute to ZOA president Ivan Novick that "Just 40 years after the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish people, as we honor the memory of those who died in the Holocaust, the govern- ment of the USSR is heightening its attempt to totally destroy Soviet Jewry. "If it can be said that Nazi extermination camps were an effort to physically re- move the Jewish people from the face of the earth, then the Soviets are engaged in an attempt to spiritually annihilate all that is Judaic," Heinz de- clared. In a related development, "new and frightening" indi- cations of the Kremlin's in- creased anti-Jewish drive have emerged from the USSR, according to the Stu- dent Struggle for Soviet Jewry and Union of Coun- cils for Soviet Jews. Victor Louis, a Soviet "Journalist" who sends articles to Western publi- cations but is universally considered to be KGB- connected and reflective of official thinking, has written, "Whether one likes or dislikes the sub- ject, mass Jewish emigra- tion from the Soviet Union has come to an end. In the USSR it is now said openly that 'the last train has left the state- ion.' " After speaking about "dropouts" — emigrants who do not go on to Israel — Louis asserts that the Soviet press is now focusing on Soviet Jews "who changed their minds about requesting perMission to leave and decided to stay in the USSR," rather than on "horror stories in the lives of those who immigrated to Is- rael." "In a number of offices where permission to leave is granted, letters from disap- pointed emigrants, de- signed to induce those who apply to change their minds, hang on the walls." Louis claims that the authorities are now permit- ting more disappointed emigrants to return. "In place of the slogan, let my people go,' another slogan has developed, let my people go back.' " Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry has re- ported to the SSSJ and UCSJ a letter just re- ceived from a Leningrad activist describing a re- cent Soviet television broadcast: "I've never seen anything like that. The program said that Zionists have seized power everywhere — in banks, newspapers and governments. "On the screen came Is- raeli tanks and airplanes, Beirut on fire, crying Arab children, parading Israeli soldiers, and murdered Arabs in Sabra and Shatila. The term 'final solution' was used, without mention- ing who it was directed against. "Then the- viewer was given explanations on Jewish `chosenness' by Yasir Arafat. The program asserted that Jews were speaking too much about the victims of the Holocaust. Towards the end, the faces of several Jewish leaders were shown, and it was told that all these people are enemies of all good and humanity, and that any form of mercy towards them was a crime against humanity." , The SSSJ and UCSJ have also learned that 21-year-old Mikhail Rosenstein of Moscow, son of long-term refus- niks Grigory and Natasha Rosenstein, has been accused of "draft evasion." Meanwhile, the SSSJ and UCSJ have joined forces with the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles to co-sponsor a half-page ad- vertisement in the Wash- ington Post. Under the headline, "In America, You Have to Kill Someone to Get 12 Years in Prison — In RUssia, You May Just Have to Teach Hebrew," it high-- lighted the plights of pris- oners of conscience Dr. Iosif Begun, Dr. Alexan- der Paritsky, Felix Kochubiyevsky, Simon Shnirman and others harassed by the KGB. In Washington, Gerald Kraft, president of Bnai Brith International, told the Annual Leadership Conference of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry that the virtual halt to Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union has not si- lenced the Soviet Jewry movement. Instead, he said, the movement has "regained momentum," pointing to the recent World Confer- ence on Soviet Jewry and the Bnai Brith "Day of Sol- idarity" as a "turning point in the current history of the Soviet Jewry movement. If the Kremlin thought three years of heightened repres- sion of Soviet Jews could snuff us out it now knows better." Kr aft made his re- marks when he accepted the NCSJ's 1983 Merit Award honoring Bnai Brith International for its programs on behalf of Soviet Jewry. The award cited Bnai Brith in particular for sponsor- ing worldwide demon- strations that coincided with, and underscored, the March 15-17 World Conference on Soviet Jewry in Jerusalem. It also was learned that six Siberian religious dissi- dents may soon leave the Soviet Union with the help of several Chicago religious organizations. Lynn Buzzare, director of the Christian Legal Society, said at a press conference at the Midwest offices of the American Jewish Commit- tee, said several Chicago religious organizations raised most of the funds made available to the Soviet Union to secure the release of the so-called Siberian Se- ven, a group of Christian Pentecostals. Among the contributors were the Christian Legal Society, the American Jewish Commit- tee and ' the National Inter- religious Task Force on Soviet Jewry. The Pentecostals took refuge in the Americal Em- bassy in Moscow in 1978 to escape religious persecu- tion. They vowed to remain in the Embassy until they - and their families were allowed to emigrate to a country where they could practice their religion. On April 12, six of the Soviet religious dissi- dents left the American Embassy in Moscow and returned to their homes in Chernogorsk, in southern Siberia. The six included Peter and Augustina Vashchenko and their daughters Luba and Lilya and Maria Chmykalov and herson Timothy. The families will now apply for emig- ration from the Soviet Union. Their departure from the Embassy was apparently in response to the Soviet's granting of an exit visa to Lidiya Vashchenko, one of the Pentecostals, who ar- rived in Israel on April 10. Lidiya will be forwarding official invitations for the rest of her family to join her. According to Mr. Buz- zard, a fund has been estab- lished to cover the cost of exit visas, renunciation of Soviet citizenship fees and air fare. - Meanwhile, Illinois Sen. Charles Percy sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Gromyko on behalf of Abe Stolar, a native of Chicago, whose application for emigration has been de- nied since 1975. • • ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• i`i , IT'S SPRING • • .---'And We're Gonna Clean House "YOUR HOUSE" RELAX • (Cleaned or Laundered) • ANY OTHER ITEMS YOU MAY HAVE — IF IT CAN BE CLEANED, WE'LL CLEAN IT AND CLEAN IT PROPERLY • • • • • • ----------,,,,, • • • • • • • • • • • • • • '• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • DRAPERIES • BEDSPREADS • BLANKETS • Call Us To Clean All Your Household Items REMEMBER WE DO ALL THE WORK REMOVE & INSTALL WINDOW SHADES • LAMPSHADES • PILLOWS VENETIAN BLINDS (Cleaned, retaped & re-corded) • • • • • • MEIN 115.4* • Ak 4 If you're moving we can re make and re-install AS• ItS1/4‘ your existing draperies to fit another window or MOM. 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