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"A FIRST FOR MICHIGAN"
CONFERENCE

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN ISREAL

presented by

American-Israel Chamber of Commerce of Michigan

Part I: FOR THE INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR

Sunday, March 29, 1:30-5 p.m.
Jewish Community Center, W.B. • No Charge

PA RT II: FOR THE CORPORATE INVESTOR

_

Monday, March 30, 12 noon-5 p.m.
Southfield Hilton, Southfield

$50 Fee:

Includes luncheon, conference materials, & workshops

• Top level experts in private industry and government
• Workshops
• Cocktail Reception

For Pre-Registration and More Information
Contact:
American-Israel Chamber of Commerce
Shelly Komer tackier

(313) 661-1948

18

Friday, March 27, 1987

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Emigration

Continued from Page 1

Sources in Israel and family
sources in the U.S. have re-
ported "a significant number
of exit permits" for family
members in the Soviet Union.
"We are also seeing a wider
variety of people getting
permits," Zuckerman said,
"so all the magic signs are
there" for an improvement in
the emigration picture.
That improvement, how-
ever, worries Jeannie Weiner
of the Detroit Soviet Jewry
Committee. "This is what the
Soviets said they were going
to do as of Jan. 1. Maybe
they are increasing the num-
befs to show they meant
what they said about family
reunification. It's great for
those families," Weiner said,
"but it is devastating for the
refuseniks."
The 10,000-12,000 Soviet
Jews who have applied to
emigrate to Israel and have
been refused by the Soviets
have been waiting as long as
20 years to leave the USSR.
"If they are responding to
family reunification, then it
scares me for the refuseniks
because many of them don't
have families outside the
Soviet Union."
She was also reluctant to
call the new Soviet policy a
trend, pointing to the annual
statistics for Soviet Jewish

emigration.
"In March 1980," she said,
"3,049 Soviet Jews left the
Soviet Union. In March 1981,
the number dropped to half
(1,249), and in March 1982,
the number was 289." In
January this year, less than
100 Soviet Jews were permit-
ted to leave. February's fig-
ure was 146.
Weiner believes the Soviets
are responding to tremendous
pressure from Soviet Jewry
activists and Western gov-
ernments by releasing the
highest visibility refuseniks
from prison. But few re-
fuseniks are being allowed to
leave the country for Israel or
the West. "What this tells me
is that Soviets are responding
to the pressure and we have
to increase it even more."
said Weiner.
Detroit area activists were
elated late last week by the
news that Leonid Volvosky
had been released from a
So,viet prison and was being
allowed to return to his Mos-
cow home. Volvosky is the
cousin of Detroiters Martin
Weston and Cindy Franklin,
and was jailed since 1985 for
"slandering the Soviet state."
He and his wife applied to
emigrate in 1974 and were
banished from Moscow to
Gorky in 1985.

`60 Minutes' Draws Fire
For Soviet Jewry Piece

ALAN FEILER

Special to The Jewish News

L

ast Sunday's 60 Min-
utes television pro-
gram, which featured a
25-minute segment on the
status of Jews in the Soviet
Union, has been denounced
by a number of Jewish organ-
izations as unbalanced and
distorted in its sanguine de-
piction of life for most Jews
in the USSR.
"We were deeply disap-
pointed with the segment,"
said John Rosenberg of the
Union of Councils for Soviet
Jews in Washington, D.C.
"Only minor attention was
paid to the refuseniks,
whereas more attention was
given to the Jews who have
co-opted their Jewishness and
given in to the Soviet system.
It was a cursory examination
of a complicated problem."
Jerry Strober, spokesman
for the National Conference
on Soviet Jewry in New
York, said that his organiza-
tion will send out a rebuttal
condemning the 60 Minutes
piece next week.
"We felt the program had a
very serious lack of balance,"
said Strober. 60 Minutes is a
very popular show and has a
certain amount of credibility.

I'm sure a lot of people
watching the program be-
lieved it and came away from
the TV thinking that the
Soviet Jewry problem is not
as crucial as the Jewish
community says it is."
One of the foremost experts
on Soviet Jewry, Dr. William
Korey, consultant to B'nai
B'rith on international af-
fairs, called the broadcast
"superficial, highly
generalized, and surprisingly
inadequate. I'm stunned.
When one is going to do a
program on a subject, one
usually researches exten-
sively and consults various
sources of information. 60
Minutes obviously didn't do
that in this case."
However, 60 Minutes an-
chorman Mike Wallace, who
reported the segment, argued
that the story was thoroughly
researched. In an interview
with The Jewish News, Wal-
lace said that he and his pro-
ducers worked sporadically
on the project for over six
months, making several trips
to Russia while researching
with the help of many organ-
izations in the United States,
the United Kingdom and the
Soviet Union.
"To say this story wasn't
well-researched or one-sided
is absurd," said Wallace.

N