NEWS Yuli and Boris Kagarlitsky. TWo Soviet Jews Gamble On Perestroika ROBERT J. LEVY Special to The Jewish News uli Kagarlitsky is a Soviet Jew, whom I ar- ranged to meet, both to learn about Jewish life in Soviet society and to seek in- formation about locating family members in the Moscow area. Yuli gave me memorable directions for my visit to his flat on Red Army Street. He said, "It's very simple. You ex- it your hotel (the Rossiya) on the west, walk through Red Square (past Lenin's Tomb), cross Prospect Marxa and enter the Sverdlovsk Metro Station, where you'll take the train to the Aeroport exit. I will be sitting on a bench next to where the very last car always stops." I had read of his Red Army Street neighborhood in Kevin Klose's Russia and the Rus- sians. The district is well known as a writers' colony, where Mr. Klose had oppor- tunities to meet many of the intellectuals of Moscow, in- cluding Yuli and Yuli's son, Boris. Red Army Street proved to be a group of grimy, crumbl- ing tenements surrounded by fields of mud. As Yuli and I walked through the neighbor- hood to his building, we pass- ed blocks of empty stores. Yuli insisted that I enter several, which had few goods and long lines for what little was available. Our trek to Yuli's flat in- cluded several other stops. We visited the neighborhood's y All furs labeled to show country of origin. *With approved credit. The Cold Michigan Winter Is Here. So Buy Now! And Enjoy The Huge Savings Of 50% to 75% Off. Giant In-Store Warehouse Sale! Today Thru February 16th Only, Only At Ceresnie & Offen. We will pick-up the Federal Luxury Tax on all applicable items. 181 S. Woodward Ave., 1 Blk. S. of Maple, Next to the Birmingham Theatre Free Adjacent Parking. 642 1690 - Monday-Saturday 9:30-5:30 •Thursday & Friday 9:30-8:30 Film to Video Transfer Transfer Movies 8mm-16mm to VHS or Beta • 401-600 FEET $39.00 • 1-200 FEET $20.00 • 201400 FEET $26.00 • 601-800 FEET $52.00 wu .1 801-1000 FEET $65.00 LADIES' FASHIONS AT THEIR BEST I Film over 1,000 feet add 6t a foot. Tape $8.00 Additional conruros ciA\ m E. RA BUY—SELL—TRADE 50 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1991 3017 N. W oodward (3 Blks. Sou th of 13 Mile) Daily & Sat. 10--6, k Fri. 10-8 288-5444 6919 Orchard Lake Road W. Bloomfield • 855-5528 Dr. Levy is professor of pediatrics, communicable diseases and pharmaceutics at the University of Michigan. He recently attended the All Union Congress on Cardiac Surgery in Moscow. pharmacy, where Yuli at- tempted unsuccessfully to fill a prescription. I was surpris- ed to see the pharmacist us- ing an abacus as a cash register-calculator, but I later learned that this practice is commonplace in the Soviet Union. Yuli and I also stopped at the stationery store, where he is entitled, as a writer, to purchase typing paper. There was none available, and this had been the case for weeks. Once in Yuli's flat I was fur- ther saddened to see his used manuscript pages recycled as bathroom tissue. Despite these and other hardships, Yuli and his son Boris are not planning on emigrating, unlike most Soviet Jews. Yuli holds memberships in both the prestigious Writers Union and the Theater Union. He has lectured extensively in the West and is a well known authority on H.G. Wells. Yuli has lived with anti- Semitism all of his life. He relates that things are better now, but that the most signifi- cant progress has only been since 1988. Yuli and Boris fear that the collapse of the Soviet Union could be accom- panied by pogroms. We spoke of some of the quotas that have been drop- ped since 1988: before then only 1-2 percent of medical students could be Jews, now admissions are unrestricted. Furthermore, until 1988, Yuli's own Theater Union, which is responsible for par- ticipation in all aspects of theater including writing, performing, and critiquing drama, maintained a quota of one new Jew admitted every other year. Yuli has also been a victim of Soviet censorship; his own works on George Orwell,