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The Southern Israelite
A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry — Established 1925
Vol. XXXVIII
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1963
NO 12
Two-Times Refugee Serves as Russian Jewry to Have No Matzoth;
l a “,Goldmann Blasts Red Government
egatlon came to Atlanta last week,
they held a conference with all
of the Atlanta rabbis.
The Atlanta spiritual leaders
stressed their interest and con
cern in finding ways to help the
Jewish people of Russia.
Anomolously, the person serv
ing as interpreter for the Rus
sian priests and staff during the
three crowded days of meetings,
conferences and tours with civic,
communal and church groups was
a person driven out of his native
land by persecution — Jacob L.
Friend.
Mr. Friend, a member of the
Ahavath Achim Hebrew School
Religious School staff and a reg
ular contributor to The Southern
from Russia when the Commun
ists first took over. He left via
the Western route and attempted
to establish a new life in Shang
hai where he was later joined by
his wife.
When that city was overrun
during World War II, he again
was forced to flee In time, he
came to America and to Atlanta
where he and the eventually re
united Friend family again set
about establishing a new life.
It was the feeling of the Rus
sian priests that they themselves
are suppliants from the hands of
the Reds, so how can they be of
assistance to persons of the Jew
ish faith?—A.R.
JERUSALEM, (JTA) — Soviet
Jewry will be without matzoth
this Passover again, a coord mg
to a cable received here from
Moscow from authentic sources.
The cable said that Moscow
bakeries are neither prepared
for the baking of matzoth nor
have they received any Pass-
over flour rations as yet Unless
the Soviet authorities permit
Passover food from abroad,
there will be no matzoth in the
Soviet Union this year, the cable
emphasized.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, ad
dressing Monday the opening
session of the General Zionist
Council, said he received a re
port revealing that Chief Rabbi
J. L Levin of Moscow informed
Soviet Bishop Says Synagogues
And Churches Slandered
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The
head of a visiting delegation of
Soviet churchmen Archbishop
Nikodim of the Russian Orth
odox Church, told a press con
ference this week that if some
Soviet newspapers denounce syn
agogues and the Jewish faith the
same organs say even worse
things about the Russian Orth
odox church
Archbishop Nikodim added that
he could say only that the posi
tion of the Jews in the Soviet
Union was stated "very clearly”
by Khrushchev in a recent letter
to British philosopher Bertrand
Russell. He amplified this, how
ever by commenting that events
affecting “individuals” were not
based on religion or nationality
of the Individual but “entirely on
their personal qualUies.” He sug
gested that prosecution, as for
economic crimes, was linked not
with religion but only with the
deeds of the “particular persons
involved.”
The Archbishop’s comments
were In reply to questions he
had been asked as to what Soviet
Christians could do about the de
nunciation by official Soviet pub
lications of the Jewish religion
and defamation of synagogues as
alleged centers of crime. The
Russian delegation arrived here
as guests of the National Council
of Churches.
Seven More Jews
Executed in Russia
For “Economic Crimes”
NEW YORK (JTA)—Another
Russian Jew has been sentenced
to death for alleged economic
crime* and six others had their
appeal for clemency rejected and
were then executed, according to
reports in a Soviet newspaper
received here this week.
According to the February 6
issue of Radiaska Bukovina, pub
lished in Czemowitz, seven of
ficials of the Education Depart
ment in Vashkovitz, a town in
Bukovina, were charged with
embezzling 25,000 rubles. The
chief accountant’s name was
given as Brelinsky, a common
Jewish name in the Soviet Union.
He was sentenced to death The
six others, whose names were
not given, were sentenced to
death to varying terms of impris
onment.
The February 10 issue of the
Soviet paper reported that the
Republic rejected the appeal for
the Supreme Soviet of the Ukraine
to grant clemency to a group of
“economic criminals” sentenced
to death in Czemowitz in October
1962. The newspaper reported
that the sentences were then
carried out.
While the Soviet newspaper
did not give any details about
the trial, records showed that the
only trial in Czemowitz for
“economic crimes” at that time
involved six Jews tried, convict
ed and sentenced for currency
speculation. The defendants then
were named as Alter Bronstein,
Yeffln L. Margo&hes, Mosiey-
Meyer Zayata, Struel I. Zimil-
evich, Isaak B. Ronis and Feliks
Ya. Mester.
the believers of all faiths as to
what they might expect from
Communist dictatorship."
In a statement on the House
floor, he said that Soviet anti-
Semitic actions “permit no other
interpretations.” He said “the
world — and especially the new
nations of Asia and Africa—will
pass stern judgment on Soviet
racism as the sordid facts are
brought to light.”
the members of his synagogue
last week that matzoth will not
be available in the Soviet Union
this year. “The change in the
tradition of Jewish life under
the Soviet regime for decades,
during which matzoth were pre
viously provided, points to the
tendencies of the present So
viet rulers with regard to the
Jewish problem,” Dr. Goldmann
stated.
The Soviet Government, Dr.
Goldmann stressed, must realize
that the Jewish people which
lost a third of its number in the
present generation cannot and
will not be able to renounce
3,000,000 Jews who, although
not threatened by physical ex
termination, face the serious
danger of spiritual, religious and
national assimiliation.
If the Soviet Government is
sincerely opposed to anti-Semit
ism, its duty is to halt anti-
Jewish publicity which is re
plete with dangers for Soviet
Jewry, the leader of the world
Zionist movement dec'ared. ‘“The
Soviet Government cannot deny
the fact that in comparison with
other national minorities and
religions in the Soviet Union
there is a blatant discrimination
against Soviet Jewry,” he em
phasized.
WASHINGTON, (JTA)—Sena
tor Harrison A. Williams, Jr,
New Jersey Democrat, Monday
in a Senate speech Invited the
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Rep
Cornelius E. Gallagher, New Jer
sey Democrat, a member of the
House Committee on Foreign Af
fairs, told the House this week
that "present-day Soviet anti-
Semitlsm is a stem warning to
Trial Starts for Israeli Musician
Charged With Aiding Nazis
and bringing them to trains which
transported them to death camps.
He was also accused of divulging
the hiding places of 100 Jews who
fled to Bendln from other areas
and with handing them over to
the Nazis for forced labor.
After the charges were listed,
the prosecutor said that despite
the charges, it was Birenblat
who removed one or two Jews
from every transport and thus
saved their lives. He added: “It
is for this court to decide wheth
er, in order to save his own life
and the lives of a few others, the
accused had the right to perform
his other deeds despite compell
ing conditions.
After the defendant pleaded not
guilty, the first witness, Isaac
Neumann now an Israeli, was
called. Neuman was a member of
the Jewish underground in Czen-
tochowa who was sent to Bendin
to organize an underground there
but was captured and brought
before Birenblat.
Neuman testified that despite
appeals to Birenblat, he was kept
for several days in a cell in Bir-
enblat’s office. When he and a
to page 5
TEL AVIV (dfA)— Hirsh Bir
enblat, former conductor of the
Israel Opera, went on trial here
this week on charges of having
helped to roundup Jews for ex
termination by the Nazis as a
Jewish policeman in Nazi-held
Poland during World War II.
In presenting the case, prose
cutor David Libai said it was the
first in which an Israeli court had
been called on to determine
whether service by a Jew as a
policeman under the Nazis made
him a member of a “hostile or
ganize” under the Israeli law for
the punishment of Nazis and their
collaborators. This is the law
under which Adolf Eichmann
was tried, convicted and hanged.
Birenblat was a member of the
Jewish police in Bendin, a force
established by the Nazi-appoint
ed Judenrat for that ghetto. The
charge sheet against him listed
accusations that he handed over
Jews to the Nazis, attacked Jews
in enclosed camps, assembled
Jews for “selection” for exterm
ination, helped the Nazis herd 5,-
000 Jews of Bendin into death
trains and rounding up Jewish
children from a local orphanage
attention of fellow Senators to a
call by the Jewish War Veteran*
for more vigorous action against
Soviet anti-Semitism. The Sena
tor pointed ont that In the last
year and a half there has de
veloped “accelerated harassment
of Russian Jews.” He cited "the
singling oat of Jews tor dis
criminatory treatment” ta the
Soviet Union.
“Khrushchev's cynical denials,
while official Soviet machinery
pashes inexorably toward the
extinction of Jewish enltnral
life had little effect on the rep
rehensible actions of Randan
officials and publications,” the
Senator said, "the closing of
synagogues and the is rid sens •f
so called economic crimes, pun
ishable by death, are the most
obvious facets of the stnister
pattern of Soviet anti-Semitism.”
He quoted extensive material an
Soviet anti-Semitism,
NEW YORK, (JTA)—The
Synagogue Council of America,
composed of all rabbinical and
lay organizations of Reform,
Conservative and Orthodox Jew
ry in the United States, an
nounced here that it has offi
cially extended an invitation to
Rabbi Jehuda Levin, Chief Rabbi
of Moscow’s Great Synagogue,
for a visit to this country with
a delegation of other Jewish re
ligious leaders from * the USSR.
It is up to the Soviet authori
ties to permit Rabbi Levin to
accept this invitation.
The announcement was made
by Rabbi nioodore L Adams,
chairman of the Council’s inter
national affairs commission, at
a reception in the Waldorf-
Astoria Hotel to 10 high Chris
tian religious dignitaries from
the Soviet Union, headed by
Archbishop Nikodim of the Rus
sian Orthodox Church. The top
Russian clergymen are in this
country as guests of the National
Council of Churches.
During the reception, attended
by more than 50 of America's
top rabbiniaal leaden, as well as
by leaders of the American Jew
ish Commmittee and the Ameri
can Jewish Congress, about two
hours of questioning look place
in which rabbis asked ths visi
tors about the lack of an over
all, Jewish religious organisa
tion of Russian Jewry, the pro
hibition against the
lack of Hebrew Bible* and pray
er books, the cloaing of amuy
synagogues, and the Soviet re
fusal to permit Jews to (mi
grate for purposes of fomily re
unification.
Archbishop Nikodim,
spokewnan for the
sisted in every
the Soviet laws permit
for all religions. He
relay the quasttoai
Levin, in lfneilie,
meet there agda. - ^ r