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-Refusnik—
Continued from* page 8.
ciation, he gave an impassioned
call for help for the Jews of the
U.S.S.R., where, he said, anti-
Semitism is worse than ever. He
reported that hundreds of anti-
Semitic books are being published
every year, and there was even a
blood libel accusation last year in
Leningrad.
Gorodetsky said the authorities
had encouraged this anti-Semitism
to the degree that it was now some
times running beyond the ability of
the authorities to control it.
He painted a picture of a Soviet
Jewry increasingly starved cultur
ally, and under increasing social
and state attack. He recalled how,
under Stalin, hundreds of Soviet
Jewry’s cultural leaders had been
murdered, and how Stalin’s plan to
deport and probably kill all of
Soviet Jewry had been stopped
only by his death. Since then,
Gorodetsky said, the authorities
have banned all Jewish culture,
Jewish schools. “For about two
million people (Soviet Jews) we
have nothing...nothing at all, only
a sign in your passport that you are
Jewish.” He said “it’s an environ
ment where “it is dangerous even
to be interested in your Jewishness.
And at the same time, no emigra
tion is allowed."
Gorodetsky said the recent esca
lation in anti-Semitic activities,
aimed at “destroying the leader
ship of the rather small Jewish
movement in the Soviet Union,”
includes beatings of refusniks which
are increasingly leading to crip
pling injuries and mutilations, and
he gave examples of refuniks who
had been crippled by beatings at
the camps where they are being
held. “What’s next,” Gorodetsky
asked, “killing people?”
Gorbachev, the Soviet leader,
was described by Gorodetsky as
“the crudest Soviet leader after
Stalin,” and the refusnik said that
as a result of not having human
rights strongly mentioned in the
Geneva summit’s final documents,
Gorbachev’s ability to oppress
Soviet Jewry had been tremen
dously strengthened. “Uor : -a , 'hev
crushed Reagan” ai the summit,
said Gorodetsky, by convinc! 'q
Reagan he was a “nice guy.”
Since the gates of Jewish emi
gration closed in 1979, there has
been much debate about the “nosh-
rim,” those Soviet Jews who went
to the United States instead of to
Israel. The Soviets have said on
occasion that the noshrim showed
that Jews seeking to leave the
U.S.S.R. did not do so for reasons
of repatriation, but simply because
they wanted to live in the U.S. for
its material comforts. Gorodetsky
said this has been a serious prob
lem, that the Soviets use the nosh
rim as an excuse for stopping
emigration, and that all Jews leav
ing the Soviet Union should go
directly to Israel. “The basis for a
widespread Jewish emigration from
the Soviet Union must not be an
anti-Soviet basis. It must be on the
basis of nationality.”
“Noshrim were not only the fault
of the Soviet Jews,” Gorodetsky
continued. He said Jews had been
deprived of their national spirit in
the U.S.S.R., and that Jewish
Agency officials and H1AS, the
immigrant aid society, had made it
too easy for the Soviet Jewish
emmigrants of the 1970s to go to
the U.S. Gorodetsky said that one
thing that could help improve this
problem would be improving the
absorption resources and facilities
in Israel, and he called upon Amer
ican Jews and H IAS to help in this
effort. “The only basis to seek
widespread Jewish emigration from
the Soviet Union is repatriation”
to Israel, he re-emphasized.
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Gorodetsky said he believed that
a major national and international
campaign against anti-Semitism
and anti-Jewish policy in the
U.S.S. R., directed against General
Secretary Gorbachev, would be
effective, because “the U.S.S.R. is
afraid of such a propaganda cam
paign.” Along with and following
such a campaign, he said that trade
concessions should be made only
in exchange for increased emigra
tion on the face-saving basis of
repatriation, not given freely to
simply improve relations. “You must
put pressure on them, otherwise
not ling will be done.”
Gorodetsky also criticized the
Israeli government’s apparent stra
tegy of trying to work for Soviet
Jewry through quiet, behind-the-
scenes actions. He asked whether
Israel was afraid to lead the world
outcry against anti-Semitism in the
U.S.S.R., and said Israel should
take up this role. “The question of
Jewish emigration from the U.S.S. R.
does not exist on the international
political agenda,” Gorodetsky em
phasized, and he called for Israeli
leadership and the U.S. campaign
against Soviet anti-Semitism in
order to change the situation.
“We must help all the Jews,
whether they are good, not-so-
good, or even bad,” he repeated.
“It is a question of our Jewish
nature.” Words spoken from the
heart enter the heart, said Rab-
benu Tam. When Gorodetsky talks
about helping all the Jews, one
knows that he means it.
Ric hard Gordon is the managing
editor of the Jewish Transcript of
Seattle. Washington.
« 1986, the Jewish Transcript. Richard Gordon
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PAGE 9 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE July 4, 1986