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BACKGROUND

Scapegoat

Continued from preceding page

predictable, so too is the
future of the fragmented
Soviet empire, with the pop-
ular and populist Mr.
Yeltsin firmly in command.
Given the acute problems
that will continue to afflict
all the republics, coupled
with powerful national and
ethnic tides, old-style Com-
munist dictators are unlike-
ly to be replaced by
benevolent liberals, but
rather by nationalist
strongmen whose rule will
be just as authoritarian as
that of their predecessors.
In the Middle East, par-
ticular concern is focused on
the future direction of the
five Central Asian republics
— Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Tadzhikistan, Kirghizia and
Turcmeniya — where
Islamic fundamentalists are
expected to reap the benefits
of the upheavals in Moscow.
Hundreds of mosques have
been built and fundamen-
talism has thrived in the re-
publics since the inception of
Mr. Gorbachev's tolerant
doctrine of glasnost over the
past six years.
The trend to extremism
has been accelerated by

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36

FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1991

GEORGAN N WOLF

l NEWS I

Berlin Congregation
Asks To Rebuild

PARTIES EXCLUSIVELY

(313) 788-2600

The question is whether
the people who gave the
English language the word
"pogrom" can seize the mo-
ment to rise above their
atavistic hatreds and build
an enlightened new Russia
on the ashes of their recent
tragedy. ❑

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elements in the neighboring
states — the radical clerics
in Iran, the mujahedin of
Afghanistan and the Jamaat
e-Islami of Pakistan.
All have vigorously en:
couraged the inhabitants of
the five Muslim republics to
opt for Islamic forms of
government rather than any
alternative secular model.
But while Soviet Central
Asia embraces fundamen-
talism and moves toward a
closer alignment with Iran,
potentially shifting the Mid-
dle East balance of power in
the long term, the immedi-
ate concern is for the fate of
Russia itself.
In the historical memory of
Jews, Russia has particular-
ly brutal connotations that
precede the October Revo-
lution and the emergence of
the Soviet empire.

Special to The Jewish News

ttempts to revive a
prewar Orthodox
congregation in
Berlin continue to generate
controversy in the Jewish
community and have the
municipal authorities puzzl-
ed.
The Adass Jisroel con-
gregation, which has re-
mained separate from the of-
ficial Jewish community,
has requested $5.7 million in
assistance and subsidies to
rebuild its synagogue and
help integrate Jews arriving
from the Soviet Union.
A spokesman for the city's
cultural department told
reporters that over $4 mill-
ion was asked to restore the
Adass Jisroel synagogue . on
Tucholsky Street, gutted by
the Nazis in 1938. The
building now serves as
Adass Jisroel's head-
quarters.
The congregation has also
requested that the Berlin
municipality continue the
subsidies it received from
the short- lived non-
Communist regime that
governed East Germany

before German unification.
According to the German
daily Frankfurter Rund-
schau, that government,
headed by Lothar de
Maiziere, made $1.7 million
available to Mario Of-
fenberg, the self-proclaimed
leader of Adsss Jisroel.
Before he became prime
minister, Mr. de Maiziere
was the Offenberg family's
lawyer in East Berlin.
The municipality spokes-
man said the first order of
business is to find out
whether Mr. Offenberg is
authorized to speak for the
survivors and heirs of the
prewar congregation.
A majority of them have
rejected his leadership and
formally withdrew his proxy
to act on behalf of the com-
munity. Mr. Offenberg
himself immigrated to West
Berlin in the 1960s from
Israel, where most former
Adass Jisroel members live.
Their leader, Shmuel
Auerbach, says there is no
need to rebuild the commun-
ity in Berlin.
Another vehement oppo-
nent is Heinz Galinski,
chairman of the mainstream
German Jewish community.

❑

Jewish Telegraphic Agency