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Friday, January 25, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
OP-ED
THE JEWISH NEWS
38 Soviet Refuseniks
Challenge The Diaspora
Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community
with distinction for four decades.
Editorial and Sales offices at 20300 Civic Center Dr.,
Suite 240, Southfield, Michigan 48076
Telephone (313) 354-6060
PUBLISHER: Charles A. Buerger
EDITOR EMERITUS: Philip Slomovitz
EDITOR: Gary Rosenblatt
BUSINESS MANAGER: Carmi M. Slomovitz
ART DIRECTOR: Kim Muller-Thym
NEWS EDITOR: Alan Hitsky
LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: Heidi Press
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Tedd Schneidv
LOCAL COLUMNIST: Danny Raskin
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES:
Lauri Biafore
Joseph Mason
Rick Nessel
Danny Raskin
Editor's note: Thirty-eight Jewish
activists from four Russian cities
currently under intense KGB pressure
have issued what the Student Struggle
for Soviet Jewry terms "a fiery
challenge" to Jews living in freedom to
act on their behalf:
OFFICE STAFF:
Marlene Miller
Dharlene Norris
Phyllis Tyner_
Pauline Weiss
Ellen Wolfe
PRODUCTION:
Donald Cheshure
Cathy Ciccone
Curtis Deloye
Ralph Orme
1985 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)
Second Class postage paid at Southfield, Michigan and additional mailing offices. Subscription $18 a year.
CANDLELIGHTING AT 5:20 P.M.
VOL. LXXXVI, NO. 22
.
Peres In Charge
Only a few months ago, Shimon Peres was one of the least trusted public
figures in Israel. Twice unsuccessful in his bid to become prime minister,
Peres was viewed by many prior to the summer elections as a politician in the
worst sense of the word, a man who would cut almost any deal to further his
own ambitions.
But all of that has changed. In the few hectic months he has been in
power, Peres has proved himself to be a strong, effective leader, all the more
remarkable because the coalition he heads is an ever-fragile patchwork of
parties more prone to in-fighting than unity. In the last week alone Peres has
persuaded the majority of the Cabinet to agree to withdraw the army from
Lebanon; helped bring the inflation rate to 3.7 percent for December, due to
the price freeze; and lobbied successfully for the Knesset to defeat a
Likud-supported motion to redefine "who is a Jew" in a way that would have
alienated the great majority of the world Jewish population.
Events shift quickly in the Mideast and crucial decisions are constantly
called into question. But for the moment, at least, Shimon Peres deserves a
word of gratitude and congratulations for the forceful yet dignified way he
has led the Jerusalem government from crisis to crisis.
Medieval Doorstep
It was not so long ago, before civil rights were respected for all citizens,
regardless of the color of their skin, that blacks were denied seats on buses
alongside whites, or were ordered into separate toilet rooms so as not to
pollute the "superior race," or were forced to walk and suffer lest they all got
on a vehicle glorified by the claims to superiority in humanity.
To the credit of the blacks and their decent white friends, that period of
degradation has ended.
Now it is being applied to those who are listed as retarded. They are
human beings. Provisions are being made to train them to share in human
rights and civilized society.
But the bigots are back on the scene. Retarded who are being trained for
an honorable existence, alongside the more fortunate in life's processes, are
told by the owners of a structure where vocational services are conducted for
the retarded, that they must use a rear elevator, that they must not
intermingle with those who have been blessed more skillfully and with more
wealth.
A medal of honor to Susan Watson for her column "Mentally Retarded
Get Taken for a Ride" on Page 3 of Wednesday's Detroit Free Press. She
exposes both the inhumanities against the retarded as well as the blacks.
Perhaps the Jewish Vocational Service was silent on the subject in order not
to suffer from restrictions on the lease with the owners of the building.
Miss Watson renders a great service to the community, to the human
spirit by calling attention to an outrage practiced in this community. She has
surely contributed to reducing the introduced outrage against those who
should be treated with compassion, with kindness. Surely what Miss Watson
has written will contribute toward ending the discrimination in a community
that must soon again take pride in honorable treatment of all citizens.
Jews of the West! We address to
you words of accusation and trust. We
are those who have demanded, in an
atmosphere of denunciations, our
right to live in our own home, Israel.
We are those who want to see joy in the
eyes of our dear ones and not the bit-
terness of separation. We are those
who are not considered model citizens
in the land of victorious socialism only
because each of us has declared, "I
have a dream!"
We call on you who spend your
efforts on the paperwork of endless
conferences, runs and picnics in de-
fense of Soviet Jewry, you who are still
full of illusions and see solidarity in
philanthropy expressed in gifts of
jeans, to show your solidarity by your
deeds. We say: Enough, brothers and
sisters, of chewing over our despair
while lunching at Lindy's. Enough of
flaming cocktail party declarations
and touching bar mitzvah "shows."
The time has come to sound the
alarm. There have been enough ex-
pressions of concern. The hour has
come for practical action.
Has not past experience been suf-
ficient? Remember: ". . in Rome,
Spain, France, Poland and Russia they
gave you fleshpots as gifts." Re-
member also: ". . . half of my childhood
is soaked in blood . ." Remember al-
ways: The accusations, prophecies and
appeals of the pre-War period never
found a receptive ear until the
Holocaust swept everything away.
Beware of demagogy: One-third of our
nation was murdered while the
speeches, marches, strikes, carnivals
and performances went on and on.
Do you need facts? But how can we
show you Anatoly Shcharansky's
bloody larynx after his hunger strike
in prison? Is it possible to let you touch
Zachar Zunshein's ribs brdken in the
Siberian Gulag, or the blindness of
Joseph Berenstein, whose eye was
gouged out in prison? Who can go
through the walls of psychiatric
clinics, courtrooms, and prison cells
and the barbed wire of labor camps to
show you the pain and anguish of
Nadezhda Fradkova, Joseph Begun,
There have been enough
expressions of concern. The
hour has come for practical
action.
Yakov Mesh, Yuli Tarnopolsky, Ale-
xander Kholmyansky, Yakov Levin,
Mark Nepomnischy or Yuli Edelstein?
How can we convey to you that
squeamish politeness thrown in our
faces at the KGB and OVIR (emigra-
tion) offices? You, who discuss "ter-
rorism" at a leisurely pace, in what
kind of framework would you place us? <
You are patient when a (token
Jewish) general keeps saying (at press
conferences of the "Anti-Zionist Com-
mittee of the Soviet Public") that "the
process of reunification of families has
ended" (meaning emigration is over).
And somewhere there is the suffering
of hundreds of thousands of separated
families.
Turn on your television sets. Open
your papers. Ask yourselves where
and how much space you have devoted
to our plight in your programs and
publications. Would it be too much to
scrape together some dollars, pounds,
shekels or francs and publish on the
front pages of leading newspapers and
Continued on Page 13