Community Views

Editor's Notebook

We Must Help
While Gates Are Open

Dressed Up In Peace,
Arafat Hasn't Changed

JAMES AUGUST SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

ID

ames August was recent-
ly a part of a United Jew-
ish Appeal Operation
Exodus Mission to Uzbek-
istan and Israel.
Uzbekistan is one of a group
of newly independent nations
on the central Asian underbel-
ly of Siberia and what used to
be the Soviet Union. It's a to-
talitarian state unprepared for
> independence.
Inflation is rampant. A dol-
lar is worth 1,000 CUM at the
bank and 10,000 CUM on the
corner. The average wage is 50
million to 60 million CUM a
week. A tank of gas costs 25 mil-
lion CUM. Two pounds of meat
(probably horse) is 6 million
GUM.
We saw few cars on the roads,
> little food in the markets, no
people in the streets. Like Iron
Curtain countries before the
revolution, the applicable word
is gray.
When the gates opened four
years ago, there were about
77,000 Jews in Uzbekistan. To-
day there are 55,000. Seventy
percent of them are Ashkenazi
Jews who fled here from the
/ Nazis 50 years ago.
Twenty-five percent are
Bukharan Jews who came here
after the destruction of the first
Temple, from Babylonia
through Persia. The other 5 per-
cent are mountain Jews.
Our mission flew to
Tashkent, Bukhara, Samark-
and and back to Tashkent, all
, on Uzbekistan Airlines. We met
with members of the communi-
ty, observed their Hebrew class-
es, kvelled as their children's
choir performed. We ate and
talked with the community
leaders and the Jewish Agency
and American Jewish Joint Dis-
tribution Committee staff.
Uzbekistan is a Moslem na-
tion; Sunni Moslems are not un-
friendly to the Jews. There's no
i overt anti-Semitism. The coun-
try has diplomatic relations
with Israel, and we met with the
Israeli and United States am-
bassadors.
At the same time there's pres-
sure for all "foreigners," espe-
cially Russians, which includes
Ashkenazi Jews, to leave. The
clear sense of the government
and, we were told, the people on
the street, is "Uzbekistan for
zbekistanis."
For the Jews, there's no fu-
ture in this country. There's a
sense that the growing anti-
Semitism and traditional scape-
;Dating ofJews now going on in
Ipther parts of the former Sovi-
et Union will reach Uzbekistan
end force them out. As the coun-

James August is vice presi-
dent of the Jewish Federa-
:ion of Metropolitan
Detroit.

try gets weaker, the funda-
mentalist Moslem nations to the
south are likely to try to take
it over. No one knows how long
the window of opportunity
to leave will stay open, but
there's considerable fear that it
will close sooner rather than lat-
er.
Viewing the conditions of the
Bukharan Jews is like going
back in history. They live in a
"neighborhood" in Bukhara, an
area of small, mud-walled build-
ings and dirt street.
The most effective and dom-
inant Jewish force is the Jew-
ish Agency. Its focus is aliyah,
youth and informal education,
ranging from summer camps to
children's choirs to ulpan-style
Hebrew classes.
The Jewish Agency is moving
these people out as fast as they
can, preparing them, getting
them comfortable with the com-
mitment to move to Israel.

Is the rescue ofJews from the
former Soviet Union really an
emergency?
We can't ask the Jews of that
part of the world to wait to be
rescued, to be helped to go to Is-
rael until they're beaten in the
streets or hauled off to camps or
mauled by the violence of civil
war.
That's what Operation Exo-
dus is all about; that's why it is
so important that each of us
make an Exodus II commit-
ment, one loud enough so the
Jews of Sarajevo, throughout
the former Soviet Union and
wherever Jews still need to be
rescued, can hear. And so they'll
undertand and have the chance
to live as free people and free
Jews.
My experience rededicated me
to the idea and the support of Op-
eration Exodus. The Sarajevo
people are the punctuation, the
proof that we must act now! ❑

Sometimes I be- definitive word on four IDF ser-
lieve that the po- vicemen missing in action. It has
litically liberal condemned the acts of Dr.
upbringing I had Baruch Goldstein, and went on
has served me to put its thumb on Jewish set-
well — gave me tlers.
good, worldly in-
Where is the reciprocity?
stincts — but There is none. Why, when oth-
other times...I am er nations hostile to Israel see
not so sure.
more and more the need for ne-
Last September when Prime gotiations, shared technology
Minster Yitzhak Rabin signed and resources, is it the Pales-
the principles of peace with PLO tinians who continue to present
Chairman Yassir Arafat, many Israel and the world with this
were excited to the point of take-and-take attitude?
tears. The thought of peace in
And peace? What is peace?
our lifetime propelled many of Define peace. On September 13,
us in that direction. When more many of us thought we knew.
cautious and conservative But here in April, what does
friends warned to stay guarded, peace mean? Take the land, we
it was difficult to hear, difficult don't want it anymore? We don't
to listen to them.
want you in our land because
I can't pretend not to listen you kill our people? Or maybe
now. What I'm hearing isn't so even a land without non-Israel
good. After the recent acts of ter- Arabs?
ror by Palestinians in Israel, I
It sounds terrible; it appears
hear very well. But I'm also racist. But once again, we find
bothered by what I didn't hear. Israel with locked-up borders —
I didn't hear Mr. Arafat make and its citizens are not as afraid
any conciliatory remarks after anymore.
last week's acts of Palestinian
Mr. Rabin said last November
terror a la Rabin in the after- that the Zionist dream isn't to
math of the Dr. Baruch Gold- inflict an apartheid-like state on
stein massacre.
the Palestinians. Fine, but Is-
Mr. Arafat's silence was a raelis don't need to live their
deafening warning. He is still lives worrying about fanatics
playing the Hebron trump card. who are more than willing to kill,
A statement saying that his own shout "God is good" and then die
people acted viciously in the themselves.
murdering of innocent Israeli
Maybe peace means a land
citizens could hurt the strategic without settlements, without oc-
and political gains he's made in- cupied land, a place without wor-
side of the peace process and the ry about being killed by these
PLO.
people. If Mr. Arafat really want-
During this process, more ed peace, he'd demonstrate traits
than 40 Israelis, be they soldier of compromise and civility. A
or civilian, have been killed. mentsh would have called Mr.
Now, the Palestinians we want Rabin and expressed sorrow at
to make peace with are prohib- the recent terror.
ited from working or traveling
Nobody ever accused Mr.
in Israel. A year ago, after acts Arafat of being a mentsh because
of Palestinian terror within Is- even while we attempt to dress
rael increased, the borders were him up with a peace symbol fig-
closed, resulting in a dramatic uratively hanging around his
decrease in violence and crime kafiyeh, he's the same guy.
within Israel.
Mr. Rabin made famous the
The argument can be made statement about making peace
that the honest, hard-working with one's enemies, not one's
Palestinians will suffer in lost friends. But one's enemies must
wages made in Israel. That's un- share in the process. Because
fortunate. Israeli businesses peace, like love and marriage,
will now have to import more ex- takes work, hard work. It's not
pensive laborers to do the same 50-50; it's 100 percent-100 per-
jobs the Arabs did. And the feel- cent. If anything symbolizes how
ings among Israelis in the West out of balance the peace process
Bank and Gaza will be all the is, then check out Mr. Arafat's
more negative.
long-distance bill to Israel.
Nobody can ever accuse Yas-
Chances are, he's reversed the
sir Arafat and his PLO of not do- charges.
ing a good job of shooting
What's going on here? I'm be-
themselves in the foot over the ginning to sound like a "right-
years. Witness the worn-out ef- winger," maybe even a "religious
fects of his intifada. Witness his fanatic."
decision to back Iraq during the
No, just an American-Zionist
Gulf War, leading to the cessa- Jew who hears the cracking
tion of aid from his allies.
sound of a back breaking. I think
Since September 13, Israel it's Israel's. Liberal and conser-
has given back hundreds of ter- vative Jews who are listening
rorist prisoners, yet it cannot get are hearing the same thing. ❑

