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PAGE 4 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE September 19, 1986 The Southern Israelite The We«My Newspaper For Southern Je^-'ty Since 1925 Vida Goldgar Jeff Rubin Editor General Manager Luna Levy Managing Editor Published by Sun Publications, Inc. also publishers of The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle Stan Rose Steve Rose Chairman and President and Publisher Co-Publisher Second Class Postage paid at Atlanta, Ga. (ISSN 003S8) (UPS 776060) POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Southern Israelite, P.O. Box 77388, Atlanta, GA 30357 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 77388, Atlanta, Georgia 30357 Location: 188 15th St., N.W., AH., Ga. 30318 Phone (404)876-8248 Advertising rates available upon request. Subscriptions: $23.00, 1 year; $41.00, 2 years Member of Jewish Telegraphic Agency; Religious News Service; American Jewish Press Assn.; Georgia Press Assn.; National Newspaper Assn. Ridiculous charge One of Israel’s proudest moments was the massive rescue operation of Ethiopian Jews. And not just the rescue but the absorption into everyday life in the Jewish state. Hardly a week goes by that we do not hear a heartwarming story of how the Ethiopian Jews are making their place. This week, on page 8, there is an enchanting picture of youngsters who have taken up Little League baseball. Yet, in Wednesday’s Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution, we read of a group calling themselves the Original African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem — Black Hebrews for short. They claim that the reason Israel has deported some of them and is seeking to deport others whom Israel contends are illegal aliens is “unadulterated racism.’’ A little history is in order, and the American Jewish Committee has done a thorough study on the subject. The story of Black Hebrews is not exactly new. The group began in the black ghettos of Chicago and other cities in the early 1960s. Their ideology claims they, not the Jews, are the true descendants of the Biblical People of Israel, and as such, Israel belongs to them. But the earlier members of the sect didn’t head straight for Israel. Numbers of them migrated to Liberia in West Africa. But, according to the AJC report, the black Liberian government, with no fear of being seen as anti-black, expelled them around 1969. Their leader, Ben-Ami Carter, led his people to Israel, where they settled in Dimona. It didn’t take long until, having long overstayed their welcome as tourists, tensions arose. Their closed, cultic lifestyle brought friction with the townspeople and their anti-Israel statements didn’t help. Because of the sensitivity of the issue, the situation bubbled beneath the surface for 16 years, while the original group grew to about 3,000 both through birth and by additional “tourists” melding into the community. Still, defectors claim Ben-Ami Carter dominates the sect with charis matic control and incidents of physical abuse of adults and children are reported. There are reports, too, that there may be a link with subversive Palestinian-Arabs. This is not a simple problem, either for the Israel authorities or for the Black Hebrews here. It can’t be clearly addressed in an editorial. But what is clear is that the claims that their problems stem from the fact that they are black is ridiculous. Vida Goldgar ‘Memo from Russia’ # A lot of you have been asking me when you’ll get to meet our new publishers, the Roses. I promise you, that time will come before long ami they are just_a^ anxious to meet you. Since I can’t quite yet have the pleasure of introducing you to them, 1 can at least give you a reader’s acquaintance with Stan and Shir ley, through his book, “Memo from Russia,” observations on a month-long trip from Moscow to Mongolia, with a side trip to Siberia. Stan Rose is a newspaperman from way back and the 10,000-mile trip, which began just a year ago, was under the auspices of the National Newspaper Associ ation. The book was an expansion on a series of columns Stan wrote for his Sun Publications in Kan sas City. Most of what we read from returnees from the U.S.S.R. is limited to the major cities, Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev; writers stress the political scene and their visits are somewhat restricted by the regulation “trmrist” nrnoram Not sn here As Steve Rose, their son, wrote in the foreword. Stan “has the unique ability to discern a mosaic from his travels, blending together the political, economic and man-in-the-street picture of a nation.” I haven’t seen the films they were able to smuggle out, but I have read the book. And I can easily believe the comment Stan says he’s heard most often: “You’ve shown us a side of Russia we haven’t seen before.” His story is not that of Moscow-based reporters, whom he says “are as much prisoners of the political system as are the 280 million citizens of the Soviet Union” who have to live in “special compounds for foreigners.” The current situation of Nick Daniloff, who was arrested on the flimsiest of trumped-up charges, only emphasizes Stan’s view. Yet, he says, “Beneath the average Russian’s suspicious, unfriendly and sometimes rude exterior, sometimes lies a warmth toward America that seems to reject the baloney com ing out of the Kremlin.” They broke the ice with Shirley’s Polaroid camera, brought into service in the Ukraine. It wasn’t easy. Their friendly overtures were first met with cold dis dain. But once they were able to convince a young girl in Tashkent to pose, a crowd gathered to watch the developing process. Shirley snapped away and handed out the pictures, each time saying, “America,” and putting out her hand. The grateful “models” grasped her hand and responded “America...Da.” It worked in the Ukraine, in Siberia and all over the country, as Shirley gave away more than 100 Polaroid pictures. They didn’t keep any of those, but the book is full of other photographs, including a pixieish one snapped by a friend, with Stan committing the ulti mate sacrilege of sitting himself at Lenin’s desk in a memorial room at the Smolny Institute in Leningrad. A wide-eyed watchful Shirley stands behind him. waiting for the worst. “Memo from Russia” is a combination of wit and deep insights. It ranges from descriptions of “stinking public toilets” and getting caught up in a Russian wedding celebration at a “non-tourist” Soviet pec- topah (restaurant), to a serious discussion with a Soviet diplomat about Afghanistan. There are exam ples of the inflexible Soviet bureaucracy and a heart breaking visit with Evgeny Yakir, a refusnik. For all that, one of the most fascinating sections of the 161-page paperback book is Stan and Shirley’s 35-hour train ride from Irkutsk, Siberia, to Ulan Bator, the capital of the People’s Republic of Mongo lia. It’s less than 700 miles, but at one point they had to wait almost a full day for a new engine. More hours were spent at a customs inspection stop, where their video camera and other cameras were ignored, while the inspector challenged Stan’s copy of Lee Iacocca’s autobiography and Shirley’s mystery book. There is a synagogue in Irkutsk, serving the 8,000 Jews there. It is on the second floor of a 100-year-old brick building. I thought the only Jews in Siberia were in labor camps. Not so. Mordechai and Zvi offered the Roses matzo already baked for the next Passover. Mordechai told them that five or six hundred people come for Yom Kippur, but there is not a minyan the rest of the year, “...the young people don’t come. It’s strictly the alte," he said. They had heard the same thing in Kiev. Whenever a young person attended services...“he would get a visit from a Communist spokesman who would remind him that the Soviet Union is an atheistic state and that his future would be jeopardized if he prac ticed his religion.” It is the same for Christians. Stan writes. Yet Moslems, who live in great numbers near the borders of Afghanistan and Iran are allowed to follow their customs and religious beliefs. Despite the restrictions and the bitter cold of Si beria, Stan writes that Mordechai seemed shocked when asked if he would like to emigrate to Israel: “What for? We live well here. They don’t bother us. Many of our most important professors, scientists, advocates (law yers) and doctors here are Jews. Gorbachev needles the Russians. He tells them in his speeches that one Jew can do what it takes three Russians to do.” They weren’t allowed to go Birobidzhan, but Soviet maps still show the Jewish Autonomous Region of the Soviet Union deep in the Russian Far East Territory. But Birobidzhan is there. They saw it from the train. Yet, Stan writes, with a “land whose soil can be planted only 75 to 90 days a year, because the temperature drops to 40 to 50 degrees below zero from November to May” who would want to live there? The scary part of the trip came when they got ready to leave. How to get the video cassettes out. But they did, hidden under their clothing. And, as Stan said to Shirley once they were safe, “So what would they have done to us...send us to Siberia? “We’re already there.” Babi Yar by Stanley M. Lefco KIEV, Sept. 27, 1941: Posters throughout the city demand that Jews assemble for “resettlement.” More than 30,000 report. They are taken to Babi Yar, a ravine just outside the city. There, they are brutally executed. The horror is unimaginable. On this 45th anni versary of the slaughter at Babi Yar, we remember the victims by recalling the story of Dina Proni- chcva, who miraculously managed to escape. She told her story to the Russian writer, Anatoli Kuznetsov. Martin Gilbert in his monumental work. “The Holocaust," quotes from his work: “All around and beneath her she could hear strange submerged sounds, groaning, chokingand sob bing: many of the people were not dead yet. The whole mass of bodies kept moving slightly as they settled down and were pressed tighter by the movements of the ones who were still living. “Some soldiers came out on to the ledge and flashed their torches down on the bodies, firing bullets from their revolvers into any which appeared to be still living. But someone not far from Dina went on groaning as loud as before. “Then she heard people walking near her, actually on the bodies. They were Germans who had climbed down and were bent over and tak ing things from the dead and occa sionally firing at those which showed signs ol life. Among them was lhe policeman who had exam ined her papers and taken her bag: she recognized him by his voice. “One SS-man caught his foot against Dina and her appearance aroused his suspicions. He shone his torch on her, picked her up and struck her with his fist. But she hung limp and gave no signs of life He kicked her in the breast with his heavy boot and trod on her right hand so that the bones cracked, but he didn’t use his gun and went off, picking his way across the corpses. “A few minutes later she heard a voice calling from above. ‘Demi- denko! Come on, start shoveling! “There was a clatter of spades and then heavy thuds as the earth and sand landed on the bodies, coming closer and closer until i Continued next pag e '