Hillel Students Meet 'Adopted'
Soviet Family In Washington
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Assistant Editor
M
oshe Raiz was 8
years old when the
KGB forced their
way into his home and
demanded to know the
whereabouts of his father.
Both his parents were
gone. Moshe's little brother,
Shaul, hid under the bed. So
Moshe was left to take the
brunt of the KGB's anger.
They pushed him around
and screamed at him. They
insisted his father join the
Soviet Army.
Since then, Moshe, now 12,
has rarely smiled.
But he smiled last week
when he received a pocket
video game from his cor-
respondent and friend, Elon
Granader.
Elon and two other
students at Hillel Day
School — Michelle Stern and
Adena Rosenblatt — trav-
eled late last week to Wash-
ington, D.C., to meet Moshe
Raiz. Accompanied by Elon's
mother, longtime Soviet
Jewry activist Judy
Granader, the three par-
ticipated in a vigil outside
the Soviet embassy and a
march on the Capitol steps.
Hillel students have been
corresponding with the Raiz
family for more than a year.
They meet at lunch time to
write letters to Soviet
leaders and to American pol-
iticians, and to send
packages to Moshe, Shaul,
Karmella and Vladimir
Raiz, who have been waiting
more than 18 years for per-
mission to emigrate from the
Soviet Union.
In November, Karmella
and Moshe received visitor's
visas to the United States.
"Even if just some
of our letters get
through, that puts
pressure on
Gorbachev to let
the Raiz family go."
Adena
Rosenblatt
They spend their time work-
ing on behalf of the family
they left behind. Among
their projects was participa-
tion in the Washington rally
where, Judy Granader said,
Karmella marched right up
to the gates of the Soviet
embassy and demanded
freedom for her husband and
all other refuseniks.
Fourth-grader Elon
Granader said he was im-
pressed by the demonstra-
tions. First, the Hillel
students joined the march
outside the Soviet embassy.
Elon remembers the red flag
flying in front of the
building and men watching
them from an upstairs
window.
While standing outside the
Soviet Embassy, the
students had the chance to
meet Karmella and Moshe
Raiz. It was a memorable
moment.
Karmella Raiz is an obser-
vant woman "whose faith
has sustained her through
many harassments and dis-
appointments," Judy
Granader said. She de-
scribed Karmella as "a
malkah," a queen.
"It was great," meeting
Karmella, Elon said.
"Except when my mother
made me kiss her."
Following the demonstra-
tion outside the Soviet Em-
bassy, the students went to
the Capitol building, where
more than 1,000 students
participated in a Yeshiva
University protest on behalf
of Soviet Jewry.
"It was amazing," Elon
said. "All these students
were chanting 'Direct flights
to Israel!' and 'Free the Raiz
family!' "
Carmella and Moshe Raiz, along with Bernie Kaplan (who helped
organize the event), outside the Soviet embassy.
Last week's demonstration
marked a happy reunion for
Judy Granader, who first
met the Raizes in 1988.
During that first meeting,
Granader and the family
communicated by writing on
a magic slate because of the
family's fear that their
apartment was bugged. She
remembers a home filled
with Judaica — the father,
Vladimir, is a teacher — and
Carmella's paintings, which
reflect both her hope and
depression.
After that first meeting,
Granader brought the Raiz
family's plight to the Hillel
students. They began
writing hundreds of letters
to the Raizes in which they
spoke of their own families,
school and hobbies.
Though they never receiv-
ed a response, the students
offered a resounding "No!"
when asked if they ever got
tired of writing the
refuseniks.
"Even if just some of our
letters get through, that
puts pressure on (Soviet
leader Mikhail) Gorbachev
to let the Raiz family go,"
said third-grader Adena
Rosenblatt.
Adena said she always
leaves the refuseniks with
this message: "I hope you
get out and go to Israel soon.
And we'll be helping you." ❑
ROUND UP
Jewish Music
School Opens
New York — The Moscow
Academy of Jewish Music
was formally inaugurated
late last month, with Cantor
Joseph Malovany of the Fif-
th Avenue Synagogue at its
helm, the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Com-
mittee announced.
The academy was launch-
ed in May 1989 when Cantor
Malovany traveled to the
Soviet Union to conduct a
two-week program of master
classes for cantorial
students. Students at the
school, who come from
Moscow, Leningrad,
Tashkent, Kiev,
Dneperpetrovik and Pet-
rozavodsk, meet for two
weeks each session four
times a year.
The JUC also helped estab-
lish a choir at the Moscow
Synagogue, where 20 young
men, graduates or students
at music conservatories,
meet several times a week to
study Jewish music and
Hebrew.
Painting Reality
In Cartoons
Name, says her stick figure
cartoons illustrate "some of
the universal realities of
human behavior and
thought."
0' World will be available
at several local book stores.
Farmington Hills resident
Marilyn Rowens has just
published a collection of car-
toons called 0' World, Mini-
Belsen Survivors
Dedicate Memorial
I KNOW I'M JUST GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES....
BUT I'M DETERMINED 70 ENJOY THE RIDE'.
An illustration from 0' World
lectures on the Human Con-
dition.
Rowens, whose previous
works include the Chanukah
book Nobody Knows My
A museum-memorial and
documentation center will
officially be dedicated at the
former Bergen Belsen death
camp on Yom Hashoah,
April 22.
Delegations of survivors
and their children from
throughout the world will
participate in a memorial
pilgrimage, organized by the
World Federation of Belsen
Survivors. The program also
will include guest speakers
Simone Veil, former presi-
dent of the European
Parliament, and Heinz
Galinski, chairman of the
Central Council of Jewish
Communities in Germany.
Israel Hits
An All-time Low
Tel Aviv (JTA) — The rains
in Israel have been sparse
this winter, with the result
that the water level in the
Sea of Galilee, Israel's
natural reservoir, is at its
lowest point ever for this
time of year.
Unless a great inflow
occurs during the next two
months, water from the Sea
of Galilee will not be
pumped into the national
water conduits for the first
time since they were built.
Protocols Sells
In Romania
The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion, the anti-Semitic
book that claims to show a
worldwide Jewish con-
spiracy, is being sold in
bookstores throughout
Bucharest.
Peter Hillmore, writing in
the London Observer, re-
counts meeting a young
Romanian woman reading
the book. He told her the
work is a notorious anti-
Semitic tract published in
1897 by the Russian Secret
Service.
The woman, however,
believed Protocols to be "not
at all outrageous." She told
Hillmore "It is quite certain
that the Jews really do have
a plan to dominate Europe."
Hillmore, writing from
Bucharest, said anti-Semitic
graffiti can be seen scrawled
on the underground in
Romania and that some poli-
ticians comment about an-
other, "He's a Jew, you
know," that one referred to
New York as "Jew York"
and that a third asked "How
can a Jew be a Romanian?"
Hillmore concludes: "Anti-
Semitism is becoming
respectable again in
Romania."
Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
5