PURELY COMMENTARY

Wiese! Prods Gorbachev For Massacred Jews

Stalin actions against the Jews were
branded as "the Black Years of 1948 to
1952" in Russian history.
The Elie Wiesel name is impressive
enough to induce the necessary move
for repatriation of the victims of the
Stalin pogrom. Hopefully there will be
immediate moral redress.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

N

obel Laureate Elie Wiesel adds
an additional act to his libertar-
ian record with a prodding to
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
to rehabilitate Jewish authors and emi-
nent scholars who were the victims of
the mass murder on Stalin's orders in
1952.
In his cabled message to Gorbachev
on Aug. 4, Wiesel asked that the names
of 24 cultural figures who were Stalin's
victims and who were innocent of
Stalin's charges of disloyalty, be ex-
onerated. His telegram to Gorbachev
stated:
They were innocent of
Stalin's accusations. You know
that. Everybody knows that. It
would be a measure of generosi-
ty and justice on your part if you
were to proclaim their official
rehabilitation on Aug. 12, 1988.
"You have had the courage
to do so much for so many in re-
cent years. History would be
thankful, Mr. General Secretary,
and so would Jews and non-
Jews worldwide.
Fulfillment of this plea should be
considered the duty of the great nation
for the sake of clarifying the Russian
record with an erasing of one of the
ugliest marks on its record. Gorbachev
already began that process with his
policy of repudiating Stalinism.
Why wasn't the request for repatria-
tion pressed earlier, especially by the
refuseniks? Shouldn't that have been

Background Of Stalin
Pogroms And Victims

T

he list of Jewish victims in the
Stalin pogrom 36 years ago
appeared in this column in our
issue of Sept. 18, 1987:

Elie Wiesel

part of the process for unquestioned just
rights for Russian Jews?
We were not all silent. I preceded
the Elie Wiesel appeal for justice by
nine months when I provided Mikhail
Gorbachev with the facts regarding the
Stalin pogrom engineered against the
eminent Jewish scholars, authors,
musicians, with outrageous charges
which should be erased as a poisoned
record.
I can add to the Wiesel action
another matter that should be a de-
mand. Repatriation should be accom-
panied by an apology to the families of
the massacred, to Russian Jewry, to
world Jewry. This is the sort of policy
pursued by the United States govern-

Mikhail Gorbachev

ment in the compensation to the
Japanese and their families for the
wrong committed against them when
they were placed in concentration
camps upon the outbreak of the war
with Japan. A formal apology is being
issued by President Ronald Reagan for
an act that cannot remain unnoticed in
our history without penance.
Such a responsibility applies with
equal vigor to the Russian guilt in the
Stalin years of terror. Mikhail Gor-
bachev is surely aware of the horrors
that were perpetrated 36 years ago. On
Nov. 3, 1987, I called them to Gor-
bachev's attention with the texts of my
articles in which were listed the names
of Stalin's victims. I pointed out that the

It was on the night of Aug.
12, 1952, that the eminent Jewish
intellectuals, who had already
become famous in world Jewish
communities on charges of be-
ing "agents of American im-
perialism" were put to death.
Those murdered that night
were:
David Bergelson, novelist,
1884-1952; Itzik Feffer, poet,
1900-1952; Dovid Hofshtein, poet,
1889-1952; Leib Kvitko, poet,
1890-1952; Solomon Lozovsky,
leader JAF Committee,
1878-1952; Peretz Markish, poet
and novelist, 1895-1952; Yitzhak
Nusinov, philogist, university
teacher, 1889-1952; Shmuel Per-
sov, linguist and writer,
1890-1952; Eliahu Spivak,
linguist, Dir., Institute of
Languages, 1890-1952; Benjamin
Zuskin, star of the Moscow
Jewish Theater, 1899-1952.

Luzzatto Revivified: Famous Family In Italian Chronicle

L

uzzatto is the distinguished
name that retained fame in
Italian history for more than
three centuries. They were authors,
poets, historians, scientists, doctors and
bankers.
The Luzzatto name regains atten-
tion thanks to an impressively-
researched volume by a distinguished
scholar, in The Life and Work of
Ephraim Luzzatto by the late Prof.
David Mirsky (Ktav). Scholars and
historians will share gratitude that the
author had completed his task before
his death in 1982, thereby preserving

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Vol. XCHI No. 22

2

August 5, 1988

FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1988

the Hebrew poetry of the man he
biographed. The late Dr. Mirsky had a
distinguished record as rabbi, author,
scholarly educator and leader in impor-
tant movements. He was professor of
English and Hebrew literature at
Yeshiva University where he held the
post of dean of Stern college. He was na-
tional chairman of American Professors
for Peace in the Middle East, president
of Histadrut Ivrit of America and had
important roles in the State of New
York and in the American Jewish com-
munity. His research produced facts
leading to the preservation of the poetry
of Ephraim Luzzatto.
It is a slim volume of only 93 pages
of poems appended in the original
Hebrew to the Mirsky text that takes
the reader to the sensationalized life of
Ephraim Luzzatto, commencing with
the University of Padua. Then there are
the salons of the Spanish-Portuguese
Jews of London and even some sensual
matters involving gaming and bawdy
houses.
First mutilated by publishers, the
original of this Luzzatto text gains
preservation in the important tasks at-
tained biographically by Prof. Mirsky.
It is the eminence and extent of the
Luzzatto generations that is given-
prominence in the Misky chronology.

The family background and the
genealogical history of the family are
traced with enthusiasm, creating an ex-
citing story by Rabbi Mirsky. He provid-
ed these facts:
Ephraim Luzzatto was born
in 1729 in the small town of San
Daniele del Friuli in the pro-
vince of Udine in northeastern
Italy. He was one of three sons
born to Raphael Luzzatto, a
physician, and descendant of
the first Jews to settle in San
Daniele, in which a Jewish set-
tlement had existed at least from
the beginnning of the 17th
century.

In the year 1600, "two
brothers Benedict and
Abraham (Luzzatto), sons of
Joseph;' left Venice to settle in
San Daniele. By 1625 the family
was sufficiently well eastablish-
ed so that when a surety of 500
ducats was required by the
patriarch of San Vito, the
signatures of "Abraham and
Benedict Luzzatto, bankers in
San Daniele," were accepted. It
was from the San Daniele
branch that some of the best-
known members of the family,

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including Simcha, Moses
Hayyim, Samuel David Luzzat-
to, and Luigi Luzzati, were
descended. And it was to this
branch of the family that
Ephraim Luzzatto traced his
roots.
The Jewish community of
San Daniele, never too large at

Continued on Page 40

