Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 23, 1992 Page: 3 of 24
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IN OUR 46TH YEARI-THURSDAY, JANUARY23, 1992, TEXAS JEWISH POST 3 FGOtUTG
BEHIND THE HEADLINES:
Demise of Soviet Union Doesn't Mean
Work of Soviet Jewry Movement Is Done
■ RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN was in not conclusive to stability and guarantees of continued
St. Petersburg last week where he was greeted with emigration lor Russian Jewry. Right of Yeltsin is St.
protest placards, jeers and derogation. People are in- Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak,
censed about high prices and shortages. The climate is
By Larry Yudelson
NEW YORK (JTA) — Twenty years
after the National Conference on Soviet
Jewry began, the organization has no
plans to follow the Soviet Union into
oblivion.
On the contrary: The collapse of the
central government means that what was
called the Soviet Jewry movement must
open channels with each of the 15
former Soviet republics.
“It is more time-consuming and
requires more personnel, at a time when
the established Jewish community has
thought the problem basically resolved,”
said Shoshana Cardin, who chairs the
National Conference, the central
coordinating body for American Jewish
organizations and communications on
the issue.
The National Conference had already
started that route, even before Russian
President Boris Yeltsin organized the
Commonwealth of Independent States
and placed the tombstone on Soviet
history and Mikhail Gorbachev’s
political career.
In October, Cardin met with Ukraine
President Leonid Kravchuk, in addition
to meeting with Gorbachev.
As the National Conference embarks
on a new phase in the movement, the
American activists have allies: the
increasingly organized local Jewish
communities in the newly independent
republics.
. “Now we ask people in the
communities and republics what they
need,” said Cardin. “It’s a major
difference.”
The transformation has affected the
institution of “twinning,” until recently
a way to form connections between
American Jews and Soviet refuseniks.
Typically, an American Bar or Bat
Mitzvah celebration would invoke a
refusenik teen of similar age as part of
the ceremony.
Today, the National Conference speaks
of twinnings closer to the sister-cities
idea — a relationship “that help Jews
feel that they’re part of klal Yisrael,”
the totality of the Jewish people.
Topping the National Conference’s
agenda is theeffort to establish relations
with the political leaders of the members
of the Commonwealth of Independent
States and of the four other former
Soviet republics.
National Conference leaders met with
the new foreign minister of Belarus,
formerly Dyelorussia, when he was still
the not yet independent republic’s
representative in New York. They have
also met with several officials of Russia.
Martin Wenick, executive director of
the conference, is making further
contacts during a visit there this week.
The original goal of the National
Conference — free emigration for the
Jews of the Soviet Union — remains a
priority. In meetings with State Depart-
ment officials, Cardin and Wenick make
sure that the importance of human rights
and emigration is conveyed to the new
leadership of the Soviet Union’s successor
states.
Cardin, who expects emigration to
continue at the rate of about 10,000 a
month, says the problem of refuseniks
continues.
But in contrast to 1086, when the
National Conference circulated a list of
over 11,000 long-term refuseniks, the
current count is not too far above 50,
with an additional 200 or so cases whose
refusals are less than five years old.
Most stem from charges that the
refuseniks know state secrets — a catch-
all restriction during the Brezhnev era
and increasingly ridiculous as ex-Soviet
nuclear scientists offer their expertise to
the highest bidder.
Cardin said that a commission
established following October’s inter-
national human rights summit in Moscow
is continuing its efforts to review
individual cases and the secrecy restric-
tion in general, even though its head,
Dr. Yuri Reshetov, is no longer head of
the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s department
of human rights and humanitarian
affairs.
The struggle to open the gates of the
Iron Curtain was “one of the most
secessful and ambitious undertakings of
any peoples in the world,” Cardin said,
reflecting on the movement’s achieve-
ments.
“The message of support for those
who wished to leave was received. The
message of encouragement for those
who challenged the system was received.
Tens of thousands made their way to
the frontiers of freedom,” she said.
“The process not only enabled nearly
500,000 to leave over a 10-year period,
but encouraged millions to acknowledge
their Jewish roots.”
Since emigration from the Soviet Union
began in 1968, 702,961 Jews have left
(through the end of last year), of whom
506,054 went to Israel, according to the
National Conference.
The conference was founded in 1971,
to succeed the American Council on
Soviet Jewry, the organized Jewish
community’s tepid response to the grass-
roots Soviet Jewry movement.
By 1971, the issue had leaped to the
front pages of the American press, due
to both the dedicated activism of groups
like the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry
and the smaller-scale, but more deadly,
terrorist campaign waged by Men
Kahane’s Jewish Defense League.
Cardin is careful to point out the
dangers inherent as what was the Soviet
Union as it tries to reshapeji.sylf'. Her
obvious pride in the Jewisy community’s
victory is not matched by unbridled joy
at the defeat of what Ronald Reagan
called the “Lvil Empire.”•
Instead, she cautions that much still
has to be done before world Jewry can
sleep soundly. And she hints that perhaps
the United Stales is not doing enough to
help.
“There must be a sense of under-
standing,” she said, noting a newspaper
article cautioning that a sudden, unas-
sisted changeover to capitalism in the
once-Communist countries ^ouid not
work.
“We have to appreciate in this country
the very difficult period that faces all tile
republics and the commonwealths,”
she said. “ There will be some who want
a very firm, steady hand to tell them
what to do.
“We must recognize what a serious
condition that is for millions of people,"
she said.
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 23, 1992, newspaper, January 23, 1992; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth753627/m1/3/: accessed June 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .