THE JEWISH NEWS
THIS ISSUE 60c
SERVING DETROIT'S JEWISH COMMUNITY
I CLOSE-UP
SEPTEMBER 11, 1987 / 17 ELUL 5747
A Challenge
From Shcharansky
The former refusenik has picked a November date
for U.S. Jews to shed their complacency
Editor
TWO•DGED
SWORDS
Converting to Judaism
can bring more
discrimination
for Detroit's
Black Jews
Natan Shcharansky believes that
the fate of Soviet Jewry is "not in the
hands of the KBG, but in our hands,
the hands of the Jewish people of the
Western world." And that worries
him.
The 39-year-old former Prisoner of
Zion, who served almost a decade in
Soviet prisons, feels that Jews in
America and in Israel have grown
"too complacent" in the long struggle
on behalf of Soviet Jewish emigration.
"The most alarming development
now is that people are willing to
believe what they hear about
Glasnost;' he says, referring to the
new Soviet policy of liberalization.
"Even Jewish leaders.
"We are losing our struggle."
Blunt, independent and totally
committed to his cause, Shcharansky
is convinced that the coming months
represent an historical moment in
Jewish history, a momentous turning
point for the two million Jews of the
USSR.
On the eve of a U.S.-USSR
summit, with Soviet Jewish
emigration a critical bargaining chip,
Shcharansky says that "the coming
weeks will define the rules of the next
detente, whether the freedom of our
people will be part of these new
relations or only lip service. Whether
this will be the beginning or the end
of the emigration movement. But our
success does not depend on [Soviet
leader Mikhail] Gorbachev:' he told
an enthusiastic rally of several
thousand people at the Jewish Amer-
Selecting
Your
Future
ican Festival in Baltimore on Monday
afternoon. "It depends on us."
Shcharansky is in the United
States for a two-week visit to "re-
charge" American Jewry, to call
attention to the fact that Glasnost is
more glitter than substance, and to
plan what he hopes will be a massive
rally in Washington on the eve of
Gorbachev's probable visit to the
United States in November.
In two days of almost non-stop
rallies, speeches and meetings
skillfully coordinated by the
Associated Jewish Charities and the
Baltimore Jewish Council,
Craig Terkowitz
GARY ROSENBLATT
Natan Shcharansky: We have to act.
Shcharansky talked about his
mission and the need to moblize
hundreds of thousands of American
Jews. And in an exclusive interview
with The Jewish News and the
Baltimore Jewish Times, he reflected
on what motivates and inspires him.
From it all, there emerges the
portrait of an authentic Jewish
Continued on Page 10
Keeping
Young
At
Art