4
Council Executive Director Alvin Kushner and President Leon Cohan: Speaking for the organized Jewish community.
Soviet Jewry Microcosm
B
ar mitzvah twinnings,
action alerts, phone calls
to refuseniks: This is the
work of the Jewish Com-
munity Council's Soviet
Jewry Committee. "We have two
clear-cut agenda items;' explains
committee Chairman Jeannie
Weiner, "education of our com-
munity and the community at
large, and action. I think we have
really been successful in making
the community concerned. There
are 200 to 300 twinnings a year
and the same with adopted
families."
The Soviet Jewry Committee is
a microcosm of the Jewish Com-
munity Council, with all the Coun-
cil's strengths and weaknesses.
"The committee is good
because you speak for the Jewish
community," says committee
member William Graham. Its
room for operations is limited,
however, "because of their fear of
an adverse effect on the local
Jewish community." Graham is
also a member of the Friends of
Soviet Jewry Education and Infor-
mation Center, a second, and in-
dependent, Soviet Jewry group in
Detroit. The organization raises
funds for the Education and Infor-
mation Center in Jerusalem,
associated with former refuseniks
like Joseph Mendelevitch.
Graham lauds the independent
"Friends" group because "it isn't
bound by what somebody's going to
think." He chides the local Jewish
community and its leaders because
"they don't have the grass roots ac-
tivism, the degree of travelers to
the Soviet Union. In other cities
you ain't somebody unless you
went to Russia:'
The most successful local
Soviet Jewry organizations are in-
dependent, he argues. Tight cen-
tral control of the Soviet Jewry
Committee and its reliance on staff
paid by the Council stifle grass
roots enthusiasm and initiative, he
believes.
Jeannie Weiner calls the sug-
gestion that her committee's hands
are tied by the Council,
"nonsense."
Nevertheless, "a lot of people
work for us because they're
disgruntled with the other commit-
tee," says Friends President Sol
Lachman. "On the other hand,
there are people who work with
both:'
Lachman says the Council saw
no threat in the Friends group un-
til its members stopped concen-
trating on raising money and
began organizing activities.
"That's where the [Soviet Jewry
Committee] gets uptight with us
sometimes?'
"We are a very ornery kind of
group," says Weiner, who spends
"30 to 40 hours a week working on
Soviet Jewry. We were deeply con-
cerned that [the Friends group]
would be a divisive, competitive
operation, rather than all of us
working on Soviet Jewry together.
I feel if we all work together on one
committee, it would be better. But
some people need a different way.
They don't work well in groups:"
Despite differences, neither
group seems to have forgotten its
primary aim. Says Lachman: "If
there's a hundred more letters go-
ing to the Soviet Union next week,
who cares who sponsored them?"
—D.H.