0" '. •• l jpage Sixtee!l . , ~': .)1'<-- 1\' ..... ' /, THE JEWISH POST Thursday, December 4, 19C>':, -., --. '."""~ j ,., ""'c!"y, December 4, 1969 THE JEWISH POST Page Seventeen > : ~ 1 I, JE S I B LI IA @ 5 ... THE 10 F F THE WORLD building in which all the other organizations meet: travel. They had not the strength. It was more (In an interview with the JeNS, Anatol Kuznetsov ism. The policeman moved in, demanding his work, and hoped they would understand. 1,,, Jacob &Ife,. charged the Soviet regime with carrying through a papers, his name, where he was staying. Even the Zionist organization, Wizo, B'nai B'rith, a comfortable to stay put. deliberate policy of oppression against its Jewish · Outside, more than a thousand other Jews school for children, a synagogue with a rabbi and minority. Here, a young Jewish visitor back from a as he started to say that he had no identification Jews began to realize that they could not go gather, among them many young men who dare " I shochet. on sitting on their suitcases, that they must recent wide-ranging tour of Russia, describes the with him, the crowd of Jews started menacingly not enter, lest it be noted by some informer. Any in i WHEN you take yOU1' seat in the plane that When Hitlerism had its greatest success, the organize their life on a more permanent basis. reality of Jewish life the USSR today.) toward the policeman. We. hurried away. Their who approach the tourists, easily picked out by hostility was clear. Had that policeman attempted . is to bring you from Buenos Airies to La anti-Semites succeeded in influencing the presi­ They started building up a social system, created the cut of their clothes, are chased away ·by syna-· ,.~ Paz, the capital of Bolivia, you find beside the dent of Bolivia to expell.the Jews from the coun­ anything, I have no doubt they would have torn gogue officials. One ,bystander says out loud:' their own Jewish institutions to care for their him limb from limb. q usual safety-belt at your seat also a rubber tube try and confiscate their wealth. Jews received an special needs. There are two Jewish cultural and AVING moved among them in Moscow, Baku "You see, what it's like here," and the official ,,~ marked "Oxygen". As soon as the plane flies out. ordei' that by a 8p'ecific date. they m1,lst leave the· social institutions in La Paz~ the Circulo Israelita H and Leningrad for three weeks, it is imp os- . Every chance encounter brought' another retorts: "Yes, it's very good." ,ij of Salta, the last frontier town in the Argentine, story - one of the boy sitting his medical finals country. Then a strange incident happened which and the Beth Am. In both you can find Jews with sible'to write about the plight of Soviet Jews in iii it keeps climbing higher, about the great moun­ in Kishinev during the Six-Day War who was Not far away, down the road, there is another recalls the story of the Book of Esther. The their familIes and their friends spending a· pleas­ understatements. Their problems are too real, synagogue, a' community of Caucasian mountain i', tains, over the clouds. The engines are all out famous Argentinian· dramatic artist Bertha ant afternoon together." Most Jews in Bolivia whether they be those of young Jews dropped approached .by the examining professor and like an automobile making its way up a steep asked, pointedly, for his views on the fighting. Jews, with 1,500 years of unbroken settlement ::l _ Singerman was idolized in Latin America; where came .from Germany and Austria, so there i.s a from educational institutions because they are in this part of the world. They speak no Yiddish :~1 hill. Your eyes begin to swim. YOijr head turns they called .her "Ambassadbra de la Poesia" (Am­ good deal of Viennese "Gemuetlichkeit" about seen entering synagogues, or religious Jews de­ The boy answered that "Israel was the aggres­ or Hebrew. The women look and dress like desert , "., dizzy. You are short of breath. Like the other bassador of Poetry). The president of Bolivia them. There is also a central representative Jew­ prived of prayer books and kosher meat, 0): of sor." But, when the professor ordered him to Arab women, all in black'. Their synagogue is. · ,1 passengers you have to use the oxygen tube, to was one of the staunchest admirers of the Jew­ ish ;body comprising all the different sectors of Jewish families in .Moscow and Leningrad re­ go to the front of the class and repeat the state­ shabby, unkempt. ';; inhale. The plane stops to allow the passengers ish artist. She went to him and explained that Jewish life, composed of the following four orga­ ment, he refused - and was ordered out of the quired to bury each of their, dead between two Leningrad, where fear is rampant. No one to breathe real air, and to get used to the height. he was committing a grave 'injustice against in­ nizations - the Jewish religious community, the non-Jews, because the authorities refuse to make examination room to an obli~atory "fail" mark. \ trusts anyone else. Outside the synagogue, set j You are more than 6;000 feet above, sea level. nocent people. B'nai B'rith ( the Zionist Federation and the Cir­ ·available land for a Jewish cemetery. Some just came up to mutter their names and' back in a courtyard capable of holding two or ;: When you leave the plane you feel as though He asked her, "What intere'st do you have in culo Israelita. Now there is a big building in The JCNS has published reports of Simchat addresses. Others sang the words of Hatikv/l in . three hundrerl people, a Russian workman is busy ., you. were groping your way along a rQof from the Jews 1 I see that you even have tears in La Paz the Jewish ·Centre (Centro Israelita) Torah in Moscow,. but until you have experienced my ear. Inside the s)'ln:agogue, the older ones ; whieh you might go toppling down at any minute. knocking stakes into the ground. Why? He ex­ your eyes." "I, too, am a Jewish daughter," she erected 'at a cost of over 100,000 American dol­ ! it for yourself, it is impossible to convey the are more circumspect. They will warn you that plains openly and simply that the Jews have a i The sign in front of us lights up at last: replied .. lars, which is big money in Bolivia; , impact of that massed gathering of thousands \ t~is one and ~his one are informers. And the habit of dancing and singing here at this time .j "Fasten your safety belt." The engines roar. The of young Jews, repeating time and again the:three "mformers" WIll warn you of others; . ; plane descends. We have land at the airfield of He felt very much ashamed and i'evoked the The small Jewish community in Bolivia has of year and that, in order to prevent a disturb­ decree. He admitted that his advisors drove him experienced very hard and difficult days. There or four Hebrew songs with which all are familiar But they are clever these old ones. A lady, : the Bolivian capital La Paz, the roof of the world. ance, he has orders from the police, to erect a to it. Apparently theywer:e well paid by well were times when anti-Semitism threatened their " long into the night, their dancing h.ere and there, aged 84, winked with one eye when she said: "Oh, ; La Paz is nearly 4,000 metres above sea level. ; barricade. known sources. I encouraged by elderly Jews playing tape-recorded yes, everything is wonderful here." · :; To the new arrival it seems to he suspended in existence. But with pro-western policy, condi­ .. Before we leave the city, the barricade is When ,the ·Nazis were busy agitating during tions became easier. The Jewish community as music to them. And with the 'other, when she added: "Every­ :! the air. The streets look as though they were Or the overwhelming experience - dreamlike fully in place, effectively barring any gathering '.; stuck to the tops of the mountains' that wind up the war agairist the J~ws in Bolivia, in the press such built a pavilion in the Ciudad de Nino (Boys' thing is marvellous." They' talk a kind of dou!.:l1e~ inside the synagogue compound. In other years, hom~less when contemplated from the :'j and up. Your brea~h fails you when you start Town for children. The president's wife distance of London - of be­ · we '3re told, thousands of laid the foundation stone. When the agreement ing hemmed in by hundreds young Jews gathered here, ~! ~~~~i~:r i~:t~~~e: ~~~e~~'el ;~~~o~~~';J~u:e~: was signed between Bolivia and Israel under just as they will do in Mos­ which Israel gives technical aid to Bolivia, there :: of young . .fews pressing you ,1 walking over empty space. Passers-by keep stop­ with questions about your life cow. But here it is no longer 'j ping to catch their ,breath. They press their hands was a military parade, and the hand played Ha­ in England ("You' .mean: you allowed. :' to their chests,and then contin.ue on their way. tikvah, and the Israeli flag 'flew alongside the can actually walk into a shop ·Looking back now 'on the t; La Paz looks wonderful at night, with thou~ Bolivian flag. The Israeli instructors in the kib­ and buy a Magen David like total experience, it is as if '1 sands of lights shimmering over a dozen moun­ butz-patterned agricultural communal settlement that ?"), about Jewish life these Russian Jews were in : l tain heights, in the tortuous winding streets that established by the Bolivian government were re­ abroad and, above all else, one huge intermpent camp U go climbing higherand higher.