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CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:04 P.M.
VOL. LXXXIX, NO. 26
Communal Salute
A world-class concert by the Israel Philharmonic at Meadow Brook
next Thursday will be the opening round of communal celebrations
marking the 60th anniversary of the Jewish Welfare Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit.
It will be an enjoyable affair for those in attendance and a milestone
time for those who are not, for we have all enjoyed the benefits of having
a strong Jewish federation in our community. The many local Jewish
agencies to which we entrust our youth, our elderly, our unfortunate, or
ourselves, would not be as cohesive or effective without the Federation
umbrella and communal support through a unified Allied Jewish
Campaign.
There are always problems that need attention and improvements
that can be made. But we all share in the pride of Detroit's sparkling
reputation as a Jewish community on the local, national and
international scene. Much of that reputation can be credited to our efforts
to work together through the Jewish Welfare Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit.
Game Savers
The leadership of the Detroit Maccabi Club has faced a trying week
in Toronto and at home. The third international Maccabi Youth Games,
hosted by the Toronto Jewish community at York University, should have
been another milestone stemming from years of work to build an
international sports network for young Jewish athletes. Instead, it
became a major administrative headache for dedicated volunteers and
sponsors from all over the world. (See Page 1.)
Parents of the 100 Detroit team members received telephone calls
from youngsters all week, detailing the errors in housing, meals,
transportation at the site, and lack of supervision and auxiliary activities
for the 12-to-16-year old athletes. Concerned parents have inundated
Detroit Maccabi officials with questions and complaints.
To their credit, the Detroit leadership interceded as soon as it arrived
with the team last Friday, making food and housing arrangements that
should have been completed by the Toronto host committee. The Detroit
delegation instructed its coaches to live in the New York University
dormitories with their athletes and to provide missing transportation and
lunches for those teams competing at off-campus locations. Mid-week,
Detroiters moved into leadership positions with the host committee to
correct the most glaring deficiencies.
Detroit's volunteers have been in the forefront of the Maccabi Youth
Games since their inception at Memphis in 1982. The 1984 games in
Detroit were a sparkling success, doubling the number of participants at
Memphis. Toronto was expected to be the third glowing chapter, and for
the young athletes it has been a wonderful week of new friendships and
athletic competition in spite of the problems.
Detroit parents, however, had legitimate concerns. But they must be
reassured by the actions of the Detroit Maccabi leadership to correct the
Toronto troubles and to ensure they do not recur in Chicago in 1988.
OP-ED
We Al! Must Support
Soviet 'Jews Of Courage'
ABRAHAM TERLINSKY
raveling to the Soviet Union
is like entering another
world. George Orwell
described it as The Animal Farm,"
Pasternak as living in a room filled
with mirrors. As an American who
had grown up in the sixties, I had
flirted with Marxism in my college
and graduate school years.-.I thought
that much of what we knew about
the Soviet Union was colored by
American propaganda. My journey
to the Soviet Union shattered my
adolescent dreams.
The refusenik community of
Moscow is quite diverse. The largest.
group of refuseniks are people who
desire to leave the Soviet Union for
economic, academic or social reasons.
A second group is made up of people
who are committed to Hebrew lan-
guage and culture s They represent
the largest group of adult students
in the Soviet Union. There are about
one thousand students of Hebrew in
the greater Moscow area. There are
numerous groups and the level of
spoken Hebrew is quite proficient.
We met a . number of - students who
had been learning Hebrew for but a
few years and they were able to con-
verse quite fluently. They are utiliz-
ing old texts and methods but are
achieving much success. There is a
smaller group of religious Jews,
mostly young people who are return-
ing to Judaism and who are attempt-
ing to live a religious life in the
Soviet Union. These refuseniks have
a most difficult time, since their
needs are great and cannot be
adequately met.
T
The Terlinskys, not their real name,
visited the Soviet Union recently.
The religious Jews of Moscow
are divided into several study and
helping groups. The Lubavitch
maintain a rather large network and
many people are attracted to the
movement. There are still some old
Lubavitch who remember the old
days." I approached one older
Lubavitch Jev%7 and told him that I
had heard before I left America that
the Rebbe holds his Russian Has-
sidim very dear.
It is not important that the
Rebbe remembers us," he .told me.
There is a slowly growing
sense of despair among
Soviet Jews.
It is more important that we re-
member the Rebbe."
A second group is that of Rabbi
Elijahu Essas. While Essas himself
has been freed, he has left teachers
and group leaders who are striving
to live an orthodox life-style. There
are still numerous study groups and
while their quality is not even, there
are many Jews involved in deep and
intense Torah study. Many have
achieved levels of scholarship which
are very high, even without direct
access to libraries and houses of
study.
I remember walking one Friday
evening with a young man who was
a university student and was study-
ing Talmud secretly. We passed by
the walls of the Kremlim, while dis-
cussing the problem of chametz on
Passover. I could not help thinking
to myself that while we were dis-
cussing the problem of the annihila-
tion of chametz on Passover, in one
of those offices in the Kremlin they
Continued on. Page 16