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River & Drake Orchard Lake & Thirteen Mile I Browse Bookstore Warren Rx Orchard Lk. & Northwestern Middlebelt & Fourteen Mile — NOVI — Border's Book Store Novi Rd. & 1-96 THE JEWISH NEWS (444 No Wail 4 .11464 _r_irlinAvnrArnoco 44" f$m/it latla Yosef Begun In Israel Promotes Jewish Culture In Soviet Union CHARLES HOFFMAN Special to the Jewish News F or a man robbed of nine years of his life, Yosef Begun displays a remarkable lack of bitterness. After only nine months in Israel, he is fully occupied with the next stage in the struggle for rights of Russian Jews. Begun, whose imprison- ment for the "crime" of teaching Hebrew made him a symbol of the struggle for a Jewish cultural revival in the Soviet Union, spent nine years in prison or internal exile. He and his wife, Ina, are liv- ing in a Yemin Moshe town- house in Jerusalem for a year, compliments of artist Ruth Matar and her husband, Michael. The Beguns seem to have no pressing material concerns and Yosef Begun has no plans to return to the pro- fession of mathematics in which he was trained. "During the last 20 years," Begun, now 57, said in an in- terview, "I have learned another profession: fighting for Jewish rights in the Soviet Union. I try to be useful here for Soviet Jews, as I tried there." Begun's full-time efforts are devoted to establishing an Association for Jewish Culture in the Soviet Union, attached to the Public Coun- cil for Soviet Jewry, which is supported by the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government. Although there are several international Jewish organi- zations now active in this area, Begun thinks that the lead and inspiration for this work must come from Israel. "It is very important that we in Israel organize living links between our land, where Jewish culture was created and where it thrives today, and the Jews of the Soviet Union," Begun said. The group wants the support of writers, artists, scholars, and musicians, as well as libraries, theaters and universities. A statement of the associa- tion's goals, signed by Begun and other recently arrived activists, says that only a "renaissance of Jewish culture" can save Soviet Jews from national extinction. It is the former activists who have spread the Jewish cultural movement in the Soviet Union because they Yosef Begun is greeted by friends after being released from Soviet prison in 1987. He made aliyah in 1988. "know first-hand how great- ly Soviet Jews thirst to learn about the spiritual values of their people." The new spirit of glasnost, he said, has made their efforts more visible. Jewish cultural centers have been establish- ed; groups for studying Hebrew and Judaism [are meeting]; and Jewish libraries, museums and associations for developing Jewish culture have been formed. Begun is careful to stress that promoting open, recog- nized cultural links between Soviet Jews and Israel and world Jewry is within the let- ter and spirit of Soviet law, and it seems important for him to couch his demands in a way that does not contradict Soviet principles. "It is a common situation that a national minority in one country seeks to establish cultural contacts with its na- tional homeland," Begun noted. "The Soviets say it is a good thing for the Arme- nians and Ukrainians We say that the same thing is good for the Jews. We want Jewish culture to be treated like other national cultures; only equal, not more. Why should it be that the 250,000 Jews of Moscow, with all its cultural institutions, have no recog- nized way to learn their language, history or literature?" The changed political situa- tion in the Soviet Union has led Begun to conclude that it is time for Jewish culture to come up from underground. An Israeli diplomatic pres- ence in Moscow and the pos- sibility of a formal role for the Jewish Agency in Jewish cultural life there create new opportunities, but also prob- lems and dilemmas Begun is adamant that the Israeli consular delegation must make the problem of Jewish education and Jewish culture part of their negotia- tions with the Soviets. The Jewish Agency's plann- ed venture, which has not yet been officially announced, is connected to a Jewish cultural center being set up next to the Moscow synagogue. For Begun, this project evokes associations with the "so-called official Jewish culture" that Soviet authorities sponsored in small doses. This Begun said, was mere "window dressing, intended to prove to critics in the West that Jewish culture in the Soviet Union was per- mitted. But we Jews knew that this culture, a journal and a theater in Yiddish, meant almost nothing." While Begun is suspicious that the cultural center planned for the Moscow synagogue might be merely an opportunity for the Soviets to prove how liberal they are, he is willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Begun's pragmatic inclina- tions come out most clearly when he addresses the issue of the controversial minister of the Moscow synagogue, Rabbi Adolf Shayevitch. Many former activists dismiss the rabbi, as a "KGB agent," and some feel that any project undertaken with his participation is ir- revocably tainted.