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Friday, April 1, 1966 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE Pare Twenty-One STEWART-GREENE COMPANY State Farmers Market — Forest Park, Bldg. "F” “The best of everything’’ Phone 366-9611 A HAPPY PASSOVER Lullaby Diaper Service TRinity 4-5778 ATLANTA, GA. PETER PAN RAKING CO. 744 Stewart Ave., S.W. PL. 31147 Atlanta, Ga. The Arrow Press QUALITY PRINTING See us on all your Commercial Printing “SERVICE IS OUR MOTTO” E. A REEVES Hapeville, Ga. C. R. ADAMSON 890 Virginia Ave. POplar 1-2474 PASSOVER GREETINGS HAPPY PASSOVER GREETINGS MARVEL Cleaners ATLANTA, GA. 2231 Cheshire Bridge Road, N. E. MElrose 6-1681 Eyewitnesses Paint Gloomy Picture Of Status of Jews in Soviet Union NEW YORK (JTA)- A gloomy picture of a beleagured Soviet Jew sh community struggling vainly for cultural and religious survival emerged last weekend at a public hearng on the stati s of the 3,000,000 Jews of the USSR. Experts and eyewitnesses told of a g ivernment campaign aimed at eliminat ng the separate religious and cultural identity of Soviet Jewry. Bayard Rustin, Negro rights leader, served as chairman of a panel of six “jurors” who took tcs’ : racnv "nd examined wit nesses. Members of the panel in cluded: Dr. John C. Bennett, president, Union Theological Sem inary; Rev. George B. Ford, pas tor emeritus, Corpus Christi Church; Samuel Fishman, United Automobile Workers; Telford Taylor, professor of law, Colum bia University; and Norman Thomas, veteran Socialist leader. The hearing was conducted by an Ad Hoc Commission on Soviet Jews, formed under the aegis of the Conference on the Status of Soviet Jews, comprising 24 Jew ish organizations in the United States. In a study distributed at the hearng, the Ad Hoc Com mission stated that the USSR em barked on a new and subtler campaign against Passover as part of its drive to destroy the cultural and religious identity of Soviet Jewry. The Commission declared that world opinion has forced the Soviet leadership to abandon its virulent attacks against Passover celebrations and launch instead a “more refined drive to reduce the scope of Pass- over from the broadlv h’storic to the narrowly ritualistic.” Accord ; ng to the Commission, the Soviet Government’s recent lift ; ng of the ban on matzoh- bakine is “far from nationwide,” with the result that “perhaps the majority of Soviet Russia’s Jews remain unaffected by the change.” Matzoh production, the Commission stated is restricted to the synagogue, “thus depriving the great number of unreligious and younger generation Jews of any tangible means of observing the hoPday. Even in the syna gogues the procedure for obtain ing matzoh f s inefficient and de meaning: Jews seeking matzoh must br ; ng the ; r own flour to the synagogue and register person ally for matzoh—a registration that is then sent to the Soviet police.” Rabbi Miller Lists Four Mninr Renuests For USSR Action Rabbi Israel Miller, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, who spoke from the pulpit of the Moscow synagogue last summer, told the hearng that the world Jewish commun ity “stood as one” in seek’ne to alleviate th« plight of Soviet Jewrv. He Psted four major re quests designed to end the “spir itual suffocation” of Soviet Jew ish life. He called on the Soviet Government to grant the Jews: 11 Orcon'/od religious life. Fke other religions: 21 organized na tional life. l ! ke other nationalities; 3) to conduct an editorial cam paign aga’nst anti-Semitism on radio and television and in news papers; and. 4) to permit re union of families separated bv war and persecution, through granting of permission to emi- grpfe abroad.” Dr. Er ; c Goldhagen. director of the Institute of East European Jewish Affairs at Branded Uni versity. told the tribunal that the “extinction” of organized Jew’sh life in the Soviet Union was a “certainty” if the present pol icies of the Soviet Government continued. “In 10 or 15 vea r s ” he predicted, “it will be difficult to find within the Soviet Union a man capable of performing a Jewish religious burial ceremony, a Jpw : sh weddmg or a bar mitz- vah ” He sa f d there were only 40 or 50 rabbis still living in the USSR, that their average age was 65, and that there was no theo logical school to train young rab bis in the Soviet Union. “The Jews of the Soviet Union—the second largest Jewish community in the world—have been reduced by 50 years of Soviet rule to a state of cultural and religious des- sication without parallel among the religious and ethnic minor ities of the Soviet Union,” he de clared. One eyewitness — the Rev. Thurston Davis, editor of the Jesuit weekly, America, who re turned from an inspection survey of religious liberty in the USSR earlier this year—said that Jews and Roman Catholics living in the Soviet Union faced ‘special dif ficulties” because of their “out side 'connections as members of an international group of be lievers.” He urged Catholics to pray for the survival of Judaism in Soviet Russia and described the Jews he met there as “ridden with fear.” the six expert witnesses who tes tified before the panel, said the Sovit Jew was caught in a kind of “squeeze play between the top Moscow bureauc racy, which coerces him to assimilate, and the middle bureaucracy of the ethnic republics, including the Great Russians, which shuts off his avenues to assimifation.” Former Premier Nikita Khrush chev, Mr. Teller said, “modified, but nevej repudiated, even the worst features of Stalin's anti- Jewish policy. His own anti-Sem itism was deep and personal; and while his political eclipse has re moved his personal anti-Semitism as a factor in Soviet policy tow ard Jews, his other arguments continue to inhibit a revision of Soviet policy.” He was critical of the emphasis of American pro tests against Soviet anti-Semi tism, which he said had put too much stress on religious discrim- Judd L. Teller, author, one of ination. PASSOVER GREETINGS VENT-A-HOOD Company 1473 Spring Street, N.W. TR. 6-8179 PASSOVER GREETINGS TO OUR Many Friends Trophies Inc. 1123 Spring St, N.W. TR. 3-3257 mtmmmmimmms GRACIOUS HOLIDAY GREETINGS Cheatham Chemical Co. Manufacturers of Drugs and Cosmetics 154 Walker St., S. W. 688-1878 Atlanta. Ga. < vv-vvvvvvyx~yvvyvvvvvv Gracious Greetings for Passover Eckardt Electric Company We Specialize in Industrial and Commercial Wiring 48 Alabama St, S.W. MU. 8-2723 ★ ♦ * * ♦ Our Very Rest Greetings J * * * * * * * ♦ ♦ ♦ ¥■ * * * * * * * * * * * Bill’s Delivery Service 835 Wylie St., S.E. Atlanta, Ga. 522-0630 $**********♦+*+♦****»***»>♦•**♦****♦+*+*+****♦*♦***