Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry
V
VOL. LV
Our 56th Year
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, December 7, 1979
• X
-I *=>■
3
3 LU
Avital back in the U
to appeal for Anato >.,
by Joseph Polakoff
WASHINGTON (JTA) —
Avital Shcharansky, wife of
imprisoned Soviet dissident
Anatoly Shcharansky, returned to
Washington last week appealing
for continued support to help
obtain her husband's release so
that he can join her in Israel.
Looking worn from her
ceaseless efforts for her husband's
freedom, Mrs. Shcharansky met
with reporters at a breakfast at the
National Press Club, appeared on
television and later was a guest at a
reception at the Capitol, hosted by
Rep. Robert Drinan (D.Mass.),
whom she described as a “dear friend
of our family.”
The ^reporters received copies of
her personal account of her life,
entitled “Next Year in Jerusalem"
which were Anatoly's last words
when his trial ended in Moscow in
1977. The book, written with liana
Ben-Joseph and translated from
Russian by Stefani Hoffman, is the
story of two young people who
married for love and were
separated because they are Jewish.
Mrs. Shcharansky emigrated to
Women’s Plea
for Soviet Jewry
3-5P.M.
December 9, 1979
The Temple
Israel in July 1973, the day after
her wedding in Moscow. She has
not been permitted to visit her
husband since then.
Mrs. Shcharansky explained the
background of what she called the
dooWtf standard the Soviets
' employ regarding dissidents. As an
example, die said the Soviet
government produced “the very
aggressive” television film against
Israel and Zionism that
emphasized to the Soviet peoples
“we have here in the Soviet Union
soldiers of Zionism,” meaning, she
said, “persons like Anatoly, the
Slepaks and Ida Nudel.”
Mrs. Shcharansky observed that
“On the one hand, the Soviet
government makes an anti-Semitic
atmosphere in the street and on the
other hand it won’t let them (the
dissidents) out.” She said that with
the 1980 Olympic Games in
Moscow only eight months away,
Jews in the Soviet Union are
saying, “we're afraid” that the
round-ups and removals from
Moscow and other cities that
preceded the visit of President
Nixon in 1972 will be repeated to
avoid possible contacts with
foreigners.
Mrs. Shcharansky urged that
letters from individuals and
statements by officials be sent to
the Soviet authorities to explain to
the Russians in a “big public
campaign” that in her special case
“Anatoly is sick" and that other
Jews want-to emigrate, too. “In my
husband's case and in general we
must not only speak but do," she
said.
Talmudist says
Self-identity Is Israel’s major threat
NEW YORK (JTA)—Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz, a world famous
Israeli Talmudist, Jewish writer-
philosopher and spiritual guide,
declared here that despite the
peace treaty between Israel and
Egypt, true peace with the Arabs is
farther than ever and that the
“major threat facing Israel today”
is one of s^If-identity and the need
for inner examination. “If we don't
build an inner core of identity in
Israel, then we will have to rely on
outside pressures. And it is better
to be a Jew because I like it rather
because others dislike it,” he said.
Steinsaltz, who is known
throughout the world for his
exhaustive Talmudic commentary,
his writings on/Jewish mysticism
and his work of religious renewal,
particularly in bridging the secular
and religious worlds, spoke
recently before some 2,000 people
at Congregation Bnai Jeshurun.
Answering questions from Dr.
William Bcrkowitz, rabbi of the
congregation, at its Dialogue '79
forum series, Steinsaltz, referring
to the controversy over Jewish
settlements, asserted that the main
issue should not be whether the
settlements are for defense
purposes which “is secondary” but
rather if “Jews can live anywhere in
Eretz Yisrael." t
The main issue in the
controversy, hp said, should be
over whether the territories will be
“judenrein” or not. “Jews should
remain in the areas whether they
are under Israeli, Jordanian,
Egyptian or PLO rule. The city of
Hebron has as much holiness as
the city of Tel Aviv and is as
important as Jews living in New
York,” he said.
Asked by Berkowitz about the
current Iranian situation and
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a
religious-political leader,
Steinsaltz asserted that while he
prefers religious fanatics to
nationalistic fanatics because the
religious fanatic has some form of
inner controls, nevertheless,
Khomeini is "the nasty
combination of religion and
nationalism and when they come
together it's worse because
someone like Khomeini believes he
is a prophet of the Lord —and so he
has all the arrogance of religion
without any of the limits ortl.”
In his broad discussion of the
issues facing American Jewry, the
noted religious thinker said that a
major problem of Judaism in
America is that “too many people
are passive participants.”
Steinsaltz urged American Jews to
become more deeply involved in
their Jewish participation. “And to
participate does not mean those
groups which have brunches on
Sunday but it means to engage in
the adventure of study, prayer, and
mitzvot (Jewish living).”
As for American rabbis,
Steinsaltz said they must challenge
their congregants and ask them
continually: “What new thing did
you find out today about being
Jewish?” At the same time the
religious thinker decried segments
of American Jewry for “suffering
too much from kosher-centered
Judaism in which small parts of
Judaism are made greater than
they are." Asserting that this kind
of Judaism cannot survive and
exist for long, Steinsaltz said that
religious life preoccupied with
levels of kosher certification
becomes a “boring shell and a
plaything” which would disappear.
“Too many Jews only want to deal
with the kitchen but there are other
rooms in the house as well,” he
added.
In his comments on the
controversial theme of women’s
role in Judaism, Steinsaltz, who
said he first “wrote on the issue 22
years ago—long before it became a
fad,” spoke of his desire to see
women involved in Jewish areas
“beyond the kitchen." Neverthe
less, he asserted that too many in
the Jewish feminist movement
were overly concerned with
“external forms and are forgetting
the important parts.”
A person, he said, participates
in Judaism “not in the number of
things they do but in the depth of
how they do them." If women will
take a greater role in the Jewish
community, he continued, they
will be leaders in Jewish life,
whether they are called rabbis or
not. Jewish women will assume a
greater role “not by fighting for it
but by creating it." As for the
feminist calls for added religious
obligations, Steinsaltz said that the
Jewish women's task should be
“not getting new rights or
commandments but fulfilling what
they can already. Are the old
commandments so ardently kept
that women need new ones?” he
asked
On current calls for a Jewish
mission to non-Jews, Steinsaltz
said his “dream is to have a mission
to .the Jews. If somebody needs
conversions, it is the Jews. It is the
mission among our own people
that is needed very urgently."
Declaring that “Jews are a family"
and not a formal religion,
Steinsaltz said that a mission to the
outside world is inappropriate.
“You don’t grab people in the
street and say—I want you to join
my family.”
Continuing, he added that “the
mission of the Jew to the world is
to be themselves and exist as Jews.
If you light a candle that burns, it
sheds light and makes other places
bright. Our mission is to burn
brighter and that will light the
world as it did in the past.
‘‘Rabbis...must...ask: ‘What new
thing did you find out today about
being Jewish?’”