Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Israelite
Vol. LXII
The Voice of Atlanta's Jewish Community Since 1925
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, October 24, 1986
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No. 43
Soviet Jewry rally may draw 1,200
c
by Richard Bono
TSl staff writer
The metropolitan Atlanta
Jewish community will come to
gether Monday in a major display
of solidarity for the estimated 2.8
million Jews living in the Soviet
Union.
The rally will convene at 7:30
p.m. at The Temple on Peachtree
Road.
Interest in this year’s Simhat
Torah Rally for Soviet Jewry has
been heightened, according to
officials, because of such recent
international events as the Rea
gan/Gorbachev summit and the
release of Soviet dissident Natan
(Anatoly) Shcharansky.
“This is a unique opportunity
to link human rights issues, such
as Soviet Jewry immigration, to
the Reagan/Gorbachev talks,”
said Noah Levine, community
relations director at the Atlanta
Jewish Federation (AJF).
Added Jack Horowitz, chair
man of AJF’s Worldwide Jewish
Affairs subcommittee, which is
helping to oversee the upcoming
rally, the release of Shcharansky
in February of this year increased
the visibility of Soviet Jewry in
the world’s consciousness.
“A lot of people have realized
that it is possible for Jews to be
released from the Soviet Union,”
Horowitz said. “It has awakened
new feelings of hope.”
Horowitz added that a recent
trip to the Soviet Union by a
group of Jewish Atlantans further
raised the community’s aware
ness and commitment to helping
those Soviet Jews who want to
leave, but who have been denied
exit visas.
AJF has taken advantage of
the new level of awareness among
Atlanta’s Jews and others in or
ganizing the Simhat Torah Rally
for Soviet Jewry.
“An exceptional publicity ef
fort has been made this year,”
said Levine. “Awareness is per
haps at an all-time high in Atlanta.
Rabbis are speaking about Soviet
Jewry from their pulpits. And it’s
being discussed at the many meet
ings that are conducted in the
community.”
More than 1,200 people from
throughout Atlanta are expected
to fill the sanctuary of The Tem
ple, according to Levine. He said
some 90 Jewish organizations
have been “hooked in” to a par
ticular refusnik in the Soviet
Union.
Central to the rally this year is
a letter-writing campaign to
President Ronald Reagan.
“Each of the Jewish organiza
tions here has been asked to
present at least 18 letters to Rea
gan expressing their concern
about a particular refusnik and
about all the 2.85 million Jews in
the Soviet Union,” Levine said.
“There will be a refusnik ‘role
call,’ and when each name is
mentioned, a representative of
the organization will come up
and drop their letters into a
mailbox.”
As pictures of refusniks are
shown on a large screen set up in
The Temple sanctuary, student
chorales from the Hebrew Acad
emy and the Epstein School will
join the audience in singing
“Yerushlayim Shel Zahav.”
In addition to the Jewish com
munity, Levine said that politi
cians, including Buddy Darden
and Wyche Fowler, are partici
pating in the letter-writing cam
paign for Soviet Jewry. Members
of the Atlanta City Council and
all metro-area county commis
sioners have been asked to parti
cipate.
Atlanta’s rally for Soviet Jewry
is being conducted in conjunc
tion with similar rallies across
the country and in the Soviet
Union, where in Moscow, Lenin
grad and Riga, Jews sing and
dance in expressions of their own
solidarity.
In the United States, as in
Members of the Atlanta Jewish Federation’s Young Leadership Council write letters on behalf of
Soviet Jewry. See story page 24.
many other Western countrl
Simhat Torah has been decla}
by Jewish youth as the day
solidarity with Soviet Jewi
youth. Mass demonstrations d
being staged, voicing demands to
the Soviet authorities for free
dom of Jewish life and the right
of immigration to Israel.
Jack Horowitz estimates there
are 30,000 refusniks in the Soviet
Union. They have been so labeled
because they have made applica
tions for exit visas, which the
government has denied.
“The reason the Soviet govern
ment refuses them exit visas is
difficult to ascertain,” Horowitz
said. “The reason they give to not
release somebody is, ostensibly,
that they have access to classified
information, which, most of the
time, is totally irrelevant. The
other reason they frequently give
is that they have insufficient rela-
See Rally, page 25
Book marks
Holocaust
remembrance
by David Landau
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A
Memorial Book recording the
names of more than 128,000
German Jews killed by the Nazis
was presented by the West Ger
man government to Israel in re
cent ceremonies at the Yad
Vashem Holocaust Center here.
Prof. Hans Booms, head of the
Federal Republic’s Archives at
Koblenz, where the 1,700 page
book was compiled over the past
25 years, told the 300 guests at
the presentation ceremony that
there can be no rapprochement
See Remembrance, page 25
Rotation Accomplished
Israel settles in with new prime
by Yaacov Ben Yosef
Special to The Southern Israelite
JERUSALEM—Yitzhak
Shamir was sworn in as Israel’s
new prime minister Monday after
a tension-filled week in which
Shamir’s rotation accord with
Shimon Peres and the future of
the national unity government
looked in doubt.
Undoubtedly helping Peres and
Shamir to settle their differences
was the terrorist hand grenade
attack outside Jerusalem’s Old
City Wednesday evening against
Israeli soldiers and their families.
One 46-year-old man was killed
and 69 others were wounded in
one of the worst terrorist assaults
in the city’s history.
The Jerusalem bombing—
against soldiers who had just
been to a swearing-in ceremony
upon completing their basic train
ing—at the Western Wall, led to
an Israeli air raid Thursday
afternoon against Palestinian
guerilla positions south of Sidon
in south Lebanon.
In that air raid, Israel lost a
plane, the first time that has hap
pened in nearly three years, and
the two pilots of the F-4 Phan
tom were forced to parachute to
the ground. Israeli air force offi
cials said later a technical mal
function appeared to be the cause.
One pilot was rescued by the
IDF in a daring effort during
which the pilot was placed on the
landing gear of the chopper under
fire and flown to a nearby beach.
There he was tied firmly to the
landing gear and flown the re
maining 40 miles to safety on the
Israeli side of the border.
The second pilot is missing. He
is apparently in the hands of
either Amal, the Shiite Moslem
militia, or the Syrians. Peres said
Monday he did not exclude the
Yitzhak Shamir
possibility of an exchange of pri
soners for the missing pilot if it
was done at what he termed “a
reasonable level.”
On Sunday, Peres announced
that the perpetrators of the West
ern Wall bombing had been
caught: all three were from Jeru
salem.
Shamir took the oath of office,
along with the 24 other ministers
after a four-hour parliamentary
debate which culminated in the
historic transfer of power from
outgoing prime minister Peres,
head of the left-leaning Labor
Alignment to Shamir, head of
the Likud bloc.
Shamir’s new government won
its first vote of confidence by a
vote of 82-17 with three coalition
members abstaining. Agudat Yis-
rael’s Knesset members absented
themselves during the vote, say
ing later they were disappointed
with the Likud’s performance in
the national unity government.
The only new face in the govern
ment belonged to Shoshana Ar-
beli-Almoslino who replaced
Mordechai Gur as health minister.
As part of their coalition
minister
agreement forged in September
1984, after elections produced a
stalemate between the two major
parties, Peres served as prime
minister for 25 months. Now it is
See Rotation, page 25
THIS WEEK
Inter-religious prayer meeting
criticized
12
Refusniks’plight becomes
personal
24
Business
22
Arts & Entertainment
23
Obituaries
28
Classified
29
10 & 25 years ago
31
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