14 Fi'iday, September -30; 1983
FIRESTONE
JEWELRY
Wholesale Diamonds & Jewelry
Remounting Jewelry & Watch Repair
SUITE 315 ADVANCE BLDG
23077 Greenfield at 9 Mile
(313) 557-1860
Ml!Flf.1"..:111"
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Jews of Ilinka Continue Their Fight for Aliya
By MOSHE RON
Ilinka,"
26-year-old
Michael Matweyew begged.
He is one of the few who
eight years ago received a
permit to leave the Jewish
village of Ilinka in Russia, a
distance of 700 miles from
The Jewish News Special
Israeli Correspondent
TEL AVIV — "Please, do
something for the Jews of
4 Music by
Sam Barnett
Moscow.
Ilinka is part of a kolhoz
(commune) in which ap-
proximately 1,000 Jews
used to live. Now there are
Big or small, we custom
the music to your needs.
968 2563
-
WIC
BI-FOLD SUPER SPECIAL
4 ft. openings
Existing Doors
$113.99 Installed
$118.99 Installed
$135.99 Installed
5 ft. openings
6 ft. openings
NEW MIRRORED BI-FOLD DOORS—FINEST QUALITY Slim Fold®
4 ft. openings
$180.00 Installed
5 ft. openings
$190.00 Installed
6 ft. openings
$240.00 Installed
Lowest Prices On All Types of Mirrored Walls, Furniture, Bars, Cubes, Etc.
Heavy Glass Table Tops, Shelving, Beveled. O.G. Edges, Etc. Complete
Service.
Prior sales excluded.
MIRRORED WALL SPECIAL
12'x8' High
$425.00
Call today for free estimates: 552-0088
Atlas Glass & Mirror
PERFECTION IS OUR REFLECTION
Where quality work, discount_prices and you
the customer make us, #1
552-0088
85 families left. They are
not allowed to go to Israel
and Soviet authorities pre-
vent any contact with Is-
rael.
Michael is afraid that
they will be isolated forever
from the Jewish people.
Today Michael lives in
Tekoa village near
Bethelem. He cannot
forget Ilinka. He remem-
bers the green pastures,
the Volga and Don rivers
and the diligent, fast and
bright nature of the Jews
of the Jewish village,
which blossomed and
developed so much better
than the neighboring
Russian villages. Their
harvests were always
better.
Michael decided on settl-
ing in Tekoa because he
does not like the life in
cities, but the "socialist re-
ality" in Ilinka prevented
him from settling on a
kibutz or a moshay.
He cannot forget his fam-
ily of a hundred souls in
Ilinka. "I see them all before
me, I remember every face,"
he says. He receives a letter
once every three months,
but they write only about
family and send good
wishes.
When they arrived eight
years ago, a family of nine,
and saw for the first time
the land of Israel, his
mother told him how sorry
she was not to have brought
along their tents: They
EQUITY PROGRAMS, INC.
"Your Insurance Agent"
358-1644
Check These Rates
For Substantial
Savings
On Your Term Life Insurance!
FIRST YEAR ANNUAL PREMIUMS
AGE
$100,000
$250,000
$500,000
25
$96.00
$196.88
$352.50
30
96.00
196.88
352.50
35
96.00
196.88
352.50
40
111.00
236.25
438.75
45
138.75
288.75
525.00
50
181.50
418.13
780.00
55
258.75
603.75
1,170.00
60
402.00
945.00
1,811.25
65
655.50
1,541.25
2,913.75
Above rates are all non-smoker
Above rates include a discount for first annual premium
Above rates are from National Benefit Lite Insurance Co.
20300 W. 12 Mile Rd., Southfield, Mich. 48076
Ronald Danuloff
Nathan Goldberg
Sherwin Wilner
could have taken some more
Ilinka Jews with them.
Those who left before them
settled in Bakii, Russia.
In their old Ilinka, the
Jews preserved their re-
ligion and customs. How-
ever, in the 1940s, when
anti-Semitism set in,
some Jews were mur-
dered and their Torah
scrolls destroyed.
The Jews retained their
spirit. They refused to raise
pigs and on holy days
prayed in one of the private
houses. They refused to
work on Shabat and when
male children were born,
they traveled long distances
to find a mohel and perform
the circumcision cere-
monies. There were no
mixed marriages in the vil-
lage and they kept kashrut.
Michael's mother wanted
her two sons to grow up as
observant Jews and decided
to send them to a yeshiva in
Jerusalem. Michael has
completed the yesliva and
three months ago he mar-
ried a wife of Kurdish des-
cent who is also religious.
Michael told us how he
and his family managed to
come to Israel. They had al-
ways dreamt of going to Is-
rael. Some of the village
Jews who went to Moscow
had heard from Jews near
the synagogue, including
refusnik Vladimir Slepak,
that there was a possibility
to emigrate to Israel. In
Moscow the Jews had never
heard about the Jewish
kolhoz of Ilinka and they
even doubted that they were
Jews at all and told them
that they all looked like
Rus s ians.
Even the KGB doubted
that they were Jews. In
any case, they were in-
formed how to apply for
exit permits and after
several months 15 of the
100 families were allowed
to leave for Israel. Nine
members of the Mat-
weyew family were
among the lucky ones.
The Kolchoz made dif-
ficulties. "Who will do the
work in the kolchoz when
you are gone?" they asked.
"You will not get the neces-
sary applications from your
relatives in Israel. You have
nothing to do there.
They asked for the appli-
cations from Israel to be
sent to another address and
when they arrived, the Rus-
sian authorities demanded
that the Jews produce a con-
firmation from the kolhoz
that it agreed to release
them from their member-
ship.
"You will work and stay
here until your death. We
will never give you any con-
firmation," the head of the
kolhoz told them.
But the Jews did not
give in. They applied to
higher authority. They
sent 114 letters, even to
Leonid Brezhnev. They
received no reply. In pro-
test, five families stopped
working in the kolhoz.
They stopped sending
their children to school.
Their sons were called up
for army service in order to
prevent their going to Is-
rael.
Michael says that many
of the letters sent never ar-
rived at their destination
but the Soviets gave in and
the 15 Jewish families from
Ilinka arrived in Israel. The
remaining Jews continue to
fight for their right to go to
Israel and refuse to give up.
They did not receive iden-
tification documents pre-
venting them from settling
in other places in the Soviet
Union. Their children
threaten to stop working.
They and their brothers in
Israel are carrying on their
struggle for aliya.
New Yehudi Menuhin Role:
Author of Children's Story
It may not be unusual for
a noted musician also to be
an author. Many have writ-
ten autobiographies and
some have commented on
world affairs.
It may be a first, however,
for so eminent a violinist,
one of the world's most fam-
ous, as Yehudi Menuhin to
have produced an exciting
children's story.
Such is the reality in the
Holt, Rinehart and Winston
large-sized fully illustrated
"The King, The Cat and The
Fiddle."
This book for very
young readers gains in its
appeal with the excellent
drawings, reproduced as
multicolored full pages
as well as smaller illust-
rations by Angela Bar-
rett.
Co-author of the book
with Menuhin is Christ-
opher Hope.
The story is about a
king who had eight
fiddlers and a cat named
Joachim. His peaceful
kingdom was filled with
music. The king who
loved music made it av-
ailable to his subjects.
YEHUDI MENUHIN
Only the royal accoun-
tants did not attend the
concerts the king spon-
sored. They were busy
counting his money and
the amounts lessened
with time.
Therefore, to save money,
they proposed the fiddlers
be fired. There was sadness
when the music stopped.
But Joachim came to the re-
scue. The cat taught the
king to play the violin and a
law was adopted to compel
accountants to play musical
instruments.