bruce m. weiss
FRONT LINES
Jewelers
26325 Twelve Mile Rd.
N N
15-Year Refuseniks
Bask In Their Freedom
THE WRITE WORD
Behind Gabe's Fruits
In The Mayfair Shops
If you find the right gift a chore
And written words don't flow for you,
Let the "write words" from my pen pour.
To make a portrait fresh and new.
A character sketch I will create,
To mark whatever you celebrate.
So let my "Write Words" speak for you,
And convey portraits, Oh so true!
#1°°11\14
Southeast corner Northwestern
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Mon.-Sat. 10-5:30
Thurs. 10-8:30
353-1424
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CANDLE LIGHTING CEREMONIES
ORIGINAL PERSONALIZED POETRY
Rae Sharfman hosted Grigory Goldstein, left, Isai Goldstein and their
family during their Detroit visit.
BY ERIC WEXLER
Special To The Jewish News
N'
There are 382,879 Soviet Jews
struggling to survive the clasp of
Soviet oppression. Each day they
fight for a small breath of free-
dom and each day the air they
breath is clogged with anti-
Semitic pollutants.
But for the Soviet Jews who are
allowed to leave the USSR (only
282 have been released in 1986),
their stories of how they endured
the stifling of individual expres-
sion reflect a trait of strong
human character.
The Goldstein family has four
stories to tell.
From physicists Isai Goldstein
and his brother Grigory, to Isai's
wife Elizabeta and her son Avi,
the Goldstein's survived their 15
years of Soviet refusal to allow
their emigration by willing their
dream of living in Israel to come
true.
Released from the Soviet
Union on April 17, the Goldsteins
have been visiting and lecturing
in various parts of the United
States. On June 5, they made an
appearance at the Jerusalem Day
celebration at Southfield-
Lathrup High School, sponsored
by the Detroit Zionist Federation
and the friends for the Soviet
Jewry Information Center.
All four Goldsteins addressed
the celebration and thanked De-
troiters for participating in their
release from the Soviet Union.
They also mentioned that the joy
Jews around the world felt after
the release of Anatoly
Shcharansky must not over-
shadow the fate of many other
Jews still waiting to repatriate to
Israel.
"When I prayed in front of the
Wailing Wall I heard voices of my
ancestors of a thousand years
ago," Grigory Goldstein said.
"And at the same time I heard my
friends who are still in the Soviet
Union. Our task is to fight to re-
patriate Soviet Jews to Israel."
Former residents of Tblisi,
Georgian SSR, USSR, the Golds-
teins were among the most out-
spoken Russian Jewish re-
fuseniks. In 1972 they renounced
their Soviet citizenship after the
massacre of the Israeli athletes in
Munich, stating that they could
no longer be Soviet citizens since
the Soviets supplied ammunition
to the PLO. They also formed the
unofficial "Phantom Orchestra."
Comprised of Jewish activists
and non-Jewish human rights
campaigners, the "Phantoms"
drew attention to Soviet human
rights abuses, performing for and
visiting with foreign tourists and
journalists.
A quarter of the Goldstein's
strength to survive was due to
the sarcastic wit of Isai Golds-
tein. "Because you couldn't cry
you had to smile," he said.
Isai's "black humor" acted as a
buffer to the physical and emo-
tional abuses the KGB was con-
stantly inflicting upon the fam-
ily. His humorous approach to
Soviet anti-Semitic policies
enabled the family to maintain a
positive attitude in their fight for
freedom.
"Soviet Jewry is still Soviet
Jewry because Soviet Jews have
a sense of humor," Elizabeth
Goldstein said.
One of the family's more trying
times was Grigory's sentence to a
year in a labor camp near the
Arctic Circle for "parasitism,"
after consistently being refused
employment because he had
applied for repatriation to Israel.
"In the transit prisons, a cell
built for 25 inmates contained 60
to 70 prisoners," Grigory remem-
bered. "Conditions were ex-
tremely unsanitary. The mat-
tresses were full of lice and, as a
result, when I arrived at the
labor camp my body was covered
with lice bites as well as lice.
"Upon my arrival, I could not
get rid of a feeling of having
encountered something familiar.
Then I understood. The camp, as I
saw it, was the Soviet society as if
viewed through the wrong end of
the binoculars. It was a micro-
cosm of the Soviet Union, except
that all of the vices were exag-
gerated."
In the government's attempt to
destroy the Goldstein's spirit,
Elizabeta said she made sure that
freedom reigned in the face of
fear.
"Sometimes I felt myself much
more free despite being in the
Soviet Union because I always
.
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Continued on Page 28
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