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At the GeneraLAssembly
North American Jewry is coming of a<
by Murray Zuckoff
WASHINGTON (JTA)—North
American Jewry has begun to come
of age politically. But this develop
ment is being accompanied by birth
pangs of emerging new perceptions
Jews have of themselves in the
political process and the agenda
they should be setting for themselves
on the American political scene to
transform their potential power
into actual power.
American Jews are attempting
to determine where to go from here
and how to shift gears in moving
from what was a traditionally
monolithic single-issue community
focusing on Israel to a multi-issue
community involved in broad and
diverse public policy issues on the
American scene, in addition to
continuing concern for Israel.
More than ever before, Jews are
becoming multi-issue oriented. They
are beginning to perceive themselves
and are being perceived by others
as more than a group of Americans
who call themselves Jews, worship
in synagogues rather than in churches,
and are particularly supportive of
Israel. American Jews are also moving
away from their traditional identi
fication with and support of the
Democratic Party and political
liberalism and are beginning to find
a home in the Republican Party
and political conservatism. Jews
are increasingly voting on issues
rather than party labels and
personalities.
These developments were dealt
with at a plenary session at the 54th
General Assembly of the Council
of Jewish Federations, attended by
some 3,000 Jewish communal leaders
from the United States and Canada.
The session was titled “The Coming
of Age of North American Jewry:
A Political Affirmation,” and was
also the theme of the assembly,
which ended Sunday.
The speakers at the session—
Kenneth Bialkin, chairman of the
Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations and
national chairman of the Anti-
Defamation League of B’nai B’rith;
Howard Friedman, president of
the American Jewish Committee;
and Theodore Mann, president of
the American Jewish Congress-
agreed that American Jews are
exerting greater power in the political
arena because they are learning
how to maximize their political
participation and input on diverse
issues of vital concern not only to
Jews but to all Americans.
As a result, many more Americans
are supporting Jews on issues of
vital concern to Jews as Jews. “It is
not organized support I am talking
about,” Mann said. “It is simply
Kenneth Bialkin
we are out there, because we are
integrated into the life of the
American community, and because
we feel as we do.”
He pointed out that he has been
“preaching to Jewish audiences that
until they knew deep in their gut
that America is not Western Europe,
they would have no real impact
upon American society; that until
we truly believed we were not guests
in just another Christian country,
we would be unable and unwilling
to exercise political power we have
been guaranteed in this American
society.”
Mann observed that the Jewish
community has come a long way
from the 1930s and 1940s, when a
potentially powerful Jewish com
munity was unable to translate
that power into real power “at the
time of our people’s very greatest
need.” He noted that it is not
possible to pinpoint the time “when
most American Jews realized that
the roof would not fall in if they
vigorously exercised their political
power” and “realized that in America
a vote is a vote is a vote.”
But Mann warned that Jewish
power—expressed through involve
ment in organizations in which
they work, through Jewish groups
with which they affiliate, and through
the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) and through
Political Action Committees (PACs)
Cancellation
The American Jewish Com
mittee meeting with Charles
Silberman, scheduled for 8:15
p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26, at
Ahavath Achim synagogue,
has been cancelled due to his
illness. The meeting will be
rescheduled after the first of
the year.
Howard Friedman
—can prove to be a danger if it is
exercised as a single-issue con
stituency.
It is one thing for Jews to submit
to their congressmen a list of demands
on various issues and for congress
men to support demands on Soviet
Jewry and Israel but not necessarily
on other issues, because “that is
how it works in a pluralistic society,”
Mann said.
by Joseph Polakoff
TSI’s Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON—Irina Grivnina,
a small, pale, gray-haired Jewish
woman who was allowed to leave
the Soviet Union and live in Holland
at the end of October, singlehandedly
dimmed the Soviet propaganda
blitz in the two days before the
Reagan-Gorbachev summit began
in Geneva.
Grivnina, who hadobtained access
to the summit events because she is
accredited to the Dutch newspaper
Elsevier, forced the Soviet’s foreign
ministry spokesman Vladimir
Lomeiko to move his press briefing
in an auditorium jammed with
journalists to a small conference
room at the International Press
Center. Earlier she had harpooned
Soviet spokesmen with questions
on human rights at a news conference
on arms control and cried out to
Gorbachev upon his arrival in Geneva
about human rights and freedom
for Nobel Prize laureate Andrei
Sacharov.
Swiss authorities revoked
Grivnina’s press credentials after
the auditorium episode and at the
insistence of Soviet authorities. By
then Soviet and American authorities
had arranged a complete news black
out on the summit.
Theodore Mann
“But it is quite another thing to
seek out legislators who oppose the
point of view of the vast majority
of American Jews on all interests
except Israel, and provide them
with substantial financial support.
“In the first case, the legislator is
telling us that he agrees with us in
part but regrettably not on everything.
In the second case, we are telling
the legislator to give us what we
Grivnina, who was identified here
by the State Department and the
Washington offices of both the
National Conference on Soviet Jewry
and the Union of Councils for
Soviet Jewry, was a leading member
of a group in the Soviet Union that
monitored Soviet abuses of psychia
tric methods against political and
ideological non-conformists. She
served 13 months in prison and an
additional 20 months in internal
exile before she was allowed to
emigrate to the Netherlands with
her husband and two children.
When Lomeiko was beginning
his remarks, a Swiss security officer
asked Grivnina to depart. While
she was demanding to know why,
cameramen and journalists focused
attention on her. Lomeiko shouted
to Western newsmen not to pay
attention to her “provocation” and
Soviet newsmen yelled, “out, out.”
“Lomeiko stormed out of the
hall to hold his briefing in a small
conference room,” the Washington
Post reported. “Once again, Soviet
efforts to match Western-style press
briefings were upset by a Soviet
dissident.”
The Associated Press reported,
“Lomeiko asked the woman several
times to be quiet, but she continued
to talk to journalists who crowded
around her. After several minutes,
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Friedman also emphasri
a single-issue community
effective in the political pr
the public perceives that the
not grounded in broader
such as defending and extending
democracy and seeking ways to
maintain a world free of totali
tarianism.
“Response to interests of Jews is
not based on Jewish political power
but on Jewish involvement in general
issues,” Friedman said. Jewish power
is not based on their voting power nor
on contributions to political candi
dates but on the ability to “dip into
the currents” of general political
power and into issues that concern
and affect Americans in general.
The new reality of Jewish political
activity, he said, is that “there is a
growing movement of an honest
difference of approach to issues.”
See Jewry, page 23.
Lomeiko said the journalists seemed
more interested in talking to the
woman, so he picked up his briefing
papers and abruptly left the room.”
United Press International re
ported that when Grivnina refused
to leave the auditorium, “Lomeiko
snapped, ‘this lady is in a state of
euphoria. To listen to her is useless.
Do you wish to listen to her or to
me?’ Some reporter yelled at the
cameramen around Grivnina to sit
down and allow Lomeiko to speak
but the meeting disintegrated into
pandemonium as Lomeiko, all but
shouting, said ‘You can’t listen to
two speakers at the same time.’ He
picked up his briefing papers and
stalked out, saying, ‘Thank you for
your attention.’”
When Grivnina persisted in aiming
questions at Gorbachev, Eugeny
Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet
Academy of Sciences, who happened
later to be a guest on ABC’s “This
Week with David Brinkley,”
demanded “do we have to call the
militia to remove this lady?” The
Baltimore Sun said that when “Mrs.
Grivnina pressed the case of a
dissident friend whom she said was
dying in a detention camp, Mr.
Velikhov angrily replied, ‘I don’t
have friends in your circle of friends.’”
Jewish woman’s efforts stymie
Soviet PR blitz before summit
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