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PAGE 20RH THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE October 3, 1986
j"** Happy Rosh Hashana ^**5
I from the offices of •
Wayne P. Kaplan, C.P.A.
Sharon and Wayne Kaplan
L
3379 Peachtree Rd., N.W., Suite 655 v
Altanta, GA 30326 266-8865 J
ROBERT B. WILENSKY, CPA
[*)
W5J ® rosky & Co.,P.C.
Certified Public Accountant*
1400 Lake Hearn Drive Suite 225
Atlanta, Georgia 30319
404-843-5590
Robert and Ava Wilensky
SHANA TOVA M’TUKAH
A SWEET AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
Mr. Robert Wilensky, President
Mr. Jay Kessler, Vice President
Mr. Robert Arogeti, Treasurer
Dr. Aaron Shatzman, Program Director
Ms. Lisa Rinzler, Secretary
Ms. Gayle Ligon-Kikov, Administrative Assistant
Sponsored b> The Atlanta Jewish Federationn. - .hum »..l.» tiaiB rilh llillel Foundation*.
r\
With sincere wishes
for a happy and healthy
New Year
from the
Officers of B’nai B'rith District Five
iSfci
Bernard L. Friedman
Wayne A. Martin
Dr. Henry Ray Wengrow
Fred Snyder
Michael Jaul
Neil C. Rosen
Kent E. Schiner
Tommy P. Baer
President
President-elect
First Vice-President
Second Vice-President
Third Vice-Pres./Treasurer
Executive Vice-President
International Senior Vice-Pres.
International Vice-President
International Board of Governors
Judge Paul L. Backman Lou Hymson Philip Kershner
Arnold D. Ellison Honorary Executive Vice-Pres.
Jewish Family
Services
operating
Jewish Family and
Children’s Bureau and
Ben Massell Dental Clinic
On behalf of our staff and
board members, we wish all of
you a peaceful New Year filled
with good health & happiness.
Dale M. Schwartz, President
Leonard L. Cohen, Executive Director
llyinko: o villQQ£ of refusniks
by Michael Sabin
JTA
More than a thousand Jewish
refusniks in one Soviet village?
The 1,300 religious, traditionally
observant Jews of Ilyinka, a sovk
hoz (farming collective) in the So
viet Union, constitute a unique
phenomenon—for the majority of
them long desperately to go to
Israel.
Yet no one has been allowed to
even apply for an emigration visa
at the local OVIR (emigration of
fice) in Voronezh for several years.
And the sovkhoz chairman, Alexei
Kuvaldin, has adamantly refused
to issue character references and
statements that an exit applicant
did not owe the collective any
money. He has refused to deliver
the vyzovi (official invitations sent
by Israeli relatives which are pre
requisite to beginning the applica
tion to emigrate.
And so, the Jews of Ilyinka, even
those who have not formalized
their applications for exit visas to
be reunited with their close rela
tives in Israel—as is their right,
guaranteed by the Helsinki Accords
Basket Three, which the Soviets
signed, as well as other interna
tional “guarantees”—are de facto
refusniks.
Although Ilyinka is 1000 miles
from Moscow in the heart of rural
Russia, the Ilyinka Jews hold fast
to religious tradition in the face of
official censure. They keep the sab
bath and the dietary laws, observe
the chagim, pray three times a day,
circumcise newborn sons, bake their
own matzot, and maintain their
orthodoxy in hostile environment.
In the early 1970s a few Ilyinka
families managed to move away
from the sovkhoz to Baku -where
they were successful in their appli
cation for the reunification of di
vided families. They are now living
in Jerusalem—absorbed into Israeli
society, speaking Hebrew fluently,
with their sons and daughters
studying in yeshivot, and serving in
tzava.
In 1976, five Ilyinka families,
numbering 42 individuals, attemp
ted to protest the Soviet authori
ties’ refusal to grant them exit visas
by a “work stoppage.” They de
manded that they be allowed to
withdraw from the collective farm
and move to a place where emigra
tion to Israel might be possible.
(As members of the collective, they
are, in effect, “serfs,” who are not
permitted to change their legal res
idence without official permis-
s i on —which was not forthcoming.)
Of the five “striking families,”
only the family of Yakov Isaievich
Matveev was inexplicably granted
exit visas in August 1980. They
now live in Neve Yakov, in Jerusa
lem.
Other Ilyinka Jews, who attempt
ed to keep their children out of
school as protest against their “en
forced serfdom” were threatened
with the loss of parental rights and
custody—and their children were
taken to school by force. Moreover,
the authorities drafted the sons of
all those who actively expressed
their desire to go to Israel—to
intimidate them from even attempt
ing to apply to emigrate.
There has been little letter and
telephone communication with the
Jews of Ilyinka in the last few
years. Isolated and insular, their
morale is very low. They feel “cut
off,” removed from the outside
world, and far removed from the
mainstream of Jewish life. Unfor
tunately, the current impasse for
the many thousands of Soviet
Jewish families who have assumed
the unwelcome, nerve-wracking
status of refusniks applies even
more so to these isolated Jews of
Ilyinka.
L' Shana
To Fa
The
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