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P«|« « THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 23, 1977 Nino's Mon-Thurs. 5:30-11 pjn. Fri.-Sat- 5:30-11:30 pja. Sunday 5:00-10 p.m (404) 174-4509 All Major Credit Cards w l will lead the HERUT delegation to the WORLD ZIONIST CONGRESS’ JOIN MEI Vote Herat SLATE 6 Shock report Soviet Jewish students decline Diane and Marvin Bernstein invite you to our From Dec. 26 through Jan. 7 SAVE 20% ON ALL REGULAR MERCHANDISE fted'# Ba/Jt SHOPPE 4407 Roswell Road In the Roswell-Wieuca Shopping Center 256-0614 by William Korey The just-published I977 Soviet statistical yearbook (Narodnoc khoziaistvo) throws a glaring light on what the future holds for Soviet Jews. It is scarcely encouraging. The statistical table on the enrollment of students in higher education reveals that, in the academic year 1975-76, only 66,900 Jews were to be found in Soviet universities. In the course of but seven years, 1969-76, the number of Jewish students in higher education has declined by over 40 per cent. Until 1968, the number of Jews in Soviet universities had annually continued to climb, reaching a total of 111,900. And this despite restrictive quotas which had been introduced in the ’forties. Aspiration for higher education, the passport to success in modern society, distinguished the Jew in the USSR, just as it had elsewhere in the Western world. When Stalin shut the doors to the Jews in the Helds of politics, diplomacy, foreign trade, and other military security areas, they could nonetheless enter, via a university education, the scientific, technological and cultural worlds. A statistical monthly in 1974 Plant Trees in Israel for Loved Ones FOR ALL REASONS AND ALL SEASONS indicated that Jews comprise 14 per cent of the holders of doctorates of science, outdis tancing in absolute figures all Soviet nationalities except Great Russians. The Jewish population constitutes less than I per cent of the total Soviet public. The year 1968 marked, however, the appearance in the Communist world of a new, although scarcely Marxist, ideological perception about Jews and their role in higher education. The leading Polish Communist theoretician, Andrzej Werblan, no doubt with the encouragement of the Kremlin, wrote an authoritative article in June, 1968, which concluded that Jews have a “particular susceptibility to revisionism” (i.e., reformism) and to “Jewish nationalism in general and to Zionism in particular.” Werblan argued that the “concentration...of people of Jewish origin” in universities and other cultural institutions had created a “bad political atmosphere.” He recommended “the correcton of the irregular ethnic composition” in higher education. Andrei Sakharov, the distinuished Soviet physicist and dissenter, in the same month, detected that the Werblan thesis was already Hnding expression in the prestigious Soviet Academy of Sciences. He bitterly asked: “Is it not disgraceful to allow another backsliding in our appointments policy...?" The “backsliding," he emphasized, was toward anti-Semitic discrimination. The Sakharov complaint was disregarded. Instead, a leading Kremlin ideologue, V. Mishin, in a major work published in 1970, for the first time officially justified the use of a numerus clausus in admission of students to Soviet universities. The number of students of each Soviet nationality which may be admitted to higher education, he contended, should be restricted to the percentage of that nationality of the total population of the Soviet Union. A total decline of 45,000 Jewish students has quietly taken place. If, in 1935, Jews constituted 13 per cent of the Soviet student body in higher education, today they constitute but 1.3 per cent. One can only speculate as to how far the plunge of Jewish student enrollment will go. It might stabilize at some 40,000— which accords with the percentage of Jews in the population. But with the current heavy rate of decline- some 10,000 to 12,000 per annum—one could approach zero in but a half-dozen years. This year not a single Jew was admitted to the University of Moscow. As the number of Jews admitted to Soviet universities declines, Jews will disappear from post graduate work. A Soviet statistical journal, in April, 1974, already revealed a drop of 30 per cent on the post-graduate level—from 4,945 to 3,456. The eventual result will be the large-scale removal of Jews from scientific fields. The number of Jews who have become “scientific workers” in recent years has ominously declined from 2,500 per annum to 1,000 per annum. The trend is clear and foreboding: the future of Soviet Jewry, if there is any, is unreservedly bleak. William Korey is director of the f?nai Frith international council. TEARS ON THE SOIL Anniversaries Birthdays - Bris - Bar and Bas Mitzvahs Weddings - Honors - Holidays - Memorials Beautiful certificates suitable for framing sent same day order received. from your SOUTHEASTERN REGIONAL OFFICE THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND One Piedmont Center Atlanta, Georgia 30305 For RUSH ORDERS—Telephone 404/237-1132 1— 1 1 PLANT • trees (at S3.00 each) in Israel. 1 1 in honor of .. 1 1 1 or in memory of 1 Planted by . .. Tel No. . . 1 1 Address Zip 1 1 Send Certificate to 1 Address City Zip 1 1 Individual Project or Organizations to be credited: 1 1 L Make Checks Payable to The Jewish National Fund CERT1F1CA TES ARE MAILED SAME DA Y ORDER RECEIVED 1 WNN KAYTMTTM Lf WUffL (Impression of Israel, 1977) by Ron Balser From Chavenu Sholom Alechem to Masada, I cried inside. Tears of pride when I touched Jewish soil Tears of love when hearts of Kibbutzniks touched mine Tears oi fear and confusion at Yad Vashem Tears of guilt and humility at Masada Tears of pity for the Arab child with his hand out Tears of thanks for the Jewish child with his head up I learned also... From a P. O. W., what strength is, From the Good Fence, what compassion is, From the Border, what restraint is, From the Wall, what tradition is, From our guides, what conviction is, From our people, what Chutzpah is, And from the Bar Mitzva boy, Now cold in his military grave, That Israel is a land of a people who cultivate life from tears... And a people of a land which returns only the right to live and die... With dignity.