4

Yeltsin Raises Fears
Of Soviet Jewry

JAMES D. BESSER

Washington Correspondent

T

he latest economic and
political upheavals in Russia
portend new risks for that
country's vulnerable Jewish
community, according to Jewish
activists in washington, who were
caught off guard — as was the
Clinton administration — by
President Boris Yeltsin's decision this
week to dump Prime Minister Sergei
Kiriyenko and replace him with the
man he ousted from the job only five
months ago — Viktor Chernomyrdin.
This is
the most seri-
ous moment
in the devel-
opment of a
more open
. . ,
society in
Russia since
the breakup
of the Soviet
Union," said
Mark Levin,
executive
Boris Yeltsin dumps
director of
his cabinet.
the National
Conference
on Soviet Jewry. "The risks are great
for the country as a whole, as well as
for the special constituency we serve."
The new political earthquake in
Moscow, which resulted in the ouster
of the entire Cabinet as well as the
leading advocates of economic reform,
was the clearest evidence yet that the
volatile, erratic Mr. Yeltsin may be
unable to fend off economic catastro-
phe, which seems closer than ever
with the recent devaluation of the
ruble and the growing banking crisis.
"The Russian situation is fast mov-
ing beyond our ability to influence,"
said a washington analyst for a Jewish
group. "Russia is going down the
tubes, and there's growing evidence
Yeltsin is utterly incapable of dealing
with it. And that's very bad news
indeed for the Jews still in that coun-
try."
Mr. Yeltsin's decision to name Mr.
Chernomyrdin his new prime minister
and heir apparent may provide some
short-term political stability, but at the
expense of long-term economic
reform, said Robert 0. Freedman,
president of Baltimore Hebrew
University.
"Chernomyrdin is not a reformer,"

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8/28
1998

Detroit Jewish News

47