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and good for all Americans of dif- religion. As this seemed to me a
ferent races, religions, ethnicities strong stand for Reform Judaism
and cultures. It is grand to cele- to take, I waited patiently for The
brate our unique heritage as Jewish News to also cover this is-
Jews as long as we don't indulge sue.
On Dec. 8, "Local Temples
in insular, closed thinking or kid
ourselves with any kind of pho- Looking Forward" was the limit-
ny superiority that cuts us off or ed coverage of The Jewish News.
alienates us from the mainstream There was some interviewing of
— the lifestream of the larger local rabbis, community leaders,
community — and cripples our etc., but no discussion to see the
image as Jews. I was equally importance or even the difficul-
thrilled with the rabbi's stand on ties this action might entail.
Bosnia and the challenge of the Maybe our temples were not go-
ing to follow this recommenda-
religious extremists.
tion.
In ensuing weeks, I still hoped
Myra Wald
Southfield discussions would be forthcom-
ing, with the pros and cons open-
ly aired.
It seems to me that such an is-
sue of direct Jewish, religious im-
portance should be thoroughly
talked about so that the entire
In early December, the Detroit Jewish community would be
Free Press and USA Today ran aware of a pro-educational deci-
extensive articles on the Union sion by the Reform community
of American Hebrew Congrega- leaders and its implications for
tions voting that synagogues our community.
should bar youngsters from He-
brew school if their parents also
Carol R Wiseman
gave them schooling in another
West Bloomfield

Waiting Patiently
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Moscow (JTA) — The first vol-
ume of the Babylonian Talmud
to be translated into Russian has
been released.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, an Is-
raeli known for translations of
the Talmud into modem Hebrew,
English and French, presented
the Russian-language edition at
a ceremony at the office of the
mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov.
The Babylonian Talmud —
which contains 63 sections, or
tractates, and which was written
in Aramaic and ancient Hebrew
when it was compiled some 1,700
years ago — has never before
been available to Russian Jews
in their native language.
During the atheist Soviet era,
when Communist authorities
suppressed all expressions of re-
ligious activity, Russian Jews
had little access to the Talmud,
copies of which were sometimes
in the country's few functioning
synagogues or were smuggled in
by foreigners.
The 59-year-old Rabbi Stein-
saltz, who is the founder and the
head of the Jerusalem-based Is-
rael Institute for Talmudic Pub-
lications, has already published
27 volumes of the Talmud in
modern Hebrew, as well as in
English and French.

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The Russian Talmud is being
published under the auspices of
the Russian Academy of Sci-
ences.
Rabbi Steinsaltz first became
widely known to Russian Jews
in 1990, when his book, The Thir-
teen Petalled Rose, a personal ex-
position of Jewish mysticism, was
translated into Russian.
The first book on Judaism
published in the then-Soviet
Union in the new era of openness
under leader Mikhail Gorbachev,
it led many Russian Jews to re-
establish links to the Jewish re-
ligion.
In 1995, Rabbi Steinsaltz was
invited by the chief rabbi of Rus-
sia, Adolph Shayevich, to take on
the title of Duchovny Ravin —
the spiritual leader of Russian
Jewry.
Since that time, Rabbi Stein-
saltz spends a week every month
in Russia giving lectures and vis-
iting Jewish communities
throughout the former Soviet
Union.
Rabbi Steinsaltz said that the
project of translating the Talmud
into Russian will continue with
the publication of other volumes
only if the first volume has a dis-
cernable impact on Russian
Jews.

