I ] INSIDE: Education, page 11 H , r · Jow.J.ah l\ssoc i ati 1/j. stor.i ca]. From The Editor, page 4 Arts& 1 on 11 Around Town, page 30 Sessions 8 Entertainment, page 13 P r o vide n c e , Street RI 02 9 06 - - THE ONLY ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN R.(. AND SOUTHEAST MASS. · ' . - - . -· VOLUME LXXI, NUMBER 17 FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1984 30c PER COPY Expert On Soviet Jewry Defeat of Prayer Amendment Sees Little Change In Policy Victory For Religious Freedom T he change ~f leadership in the Soviet The B'nai°B'rith executive cites a recent by Ben Gallob if a prayer " has real content., it is bound to Union is not likely to result in any basic statement by Chernenko in which he wrote (JTA) - Major Jewish organizations either offend qr to put pressure on change in the near future in policy toward that "we arc in favor of active and fruitfu l hailed the reject ion by 't he Senate last someone. If it has no real content, then it the Soviet ,Jewish community, a world dialogue wit h nations living under dif­ week of a proposed constitutional amend­ makes a mockery of religion and ul­ authority on Soviet J ewry says. fe rent social systems than ours, the United ment to permit prayer in · the public ti mate I y en cou r ages spiritual Dr. William Korey, director of policy States and Britain in part icular." he ad­ schools, agreeing generally t.he vote was a shallowness." rcsemch fo r the International Council of ded that it is more important than ever to victory for religious freedom. He lauded the act.ion of the Senators l:l 'nai l:l'rit h, states in a new report that intensify effort s for mutual understanding While the Rep u blican-controlled " who chose to maintain t he constitution as over the past year basic decisions were wit h the U.S. Senate cast a majority for t he proposal, for t he brilliant unencumbered document made by the politburo as a group and that Korey notes that Chernenko is the only which President Reagan had lobbied that has allowed American pluralism and this is likely to cont inuc during t he transi­ person in t he 12-man top Soviet leadership vigorously, the vote fell short of the needed democracy to endure." t ion from Yuri Andropov to Konstantin U. who has ex pressed himself 'publicly on two-thirds majority required in each house Victory For Church-State Separation Chernenko as the head oft he Soviet Com­ emigration. Although narrow and restric­ as a first step for a constitut ional amend­ Rabbi Mordecai Waxman, president of munist Party. tive in it s int erpretation of international ment. The vote was 56 to 44, 11 short of the the Synagogue Council of America, repre­ Because· of the nature of collective human rights law, the comment non­ two-thirds of t he 100 Senators needed fo r sent ing the rabbinical and congregational decision -ma king, the agedness of et hclcss is not totally negative to emigra­ approval. Sen. Lowell Weicker (R. Conn.) agencies of Reform, Conservative and tion rights, Korey says. He adds that in leadership, and t he sharp tensions be­ led the fight against Senate approval. Ort hodox J udaism, said t he defeat of the tween the U.S.S.R. and the United States, Chernenko's book, Human Rights in Howard Friedman, American Jewish prayer amendment " is a victory for t he decisions arc likely to be cautious, Korey Soviet Society, the Soviet leader referred Committee president, said t.he American principal of the separation of church and st ates. favorably to the Helsinki Pinal Act. people now had the time to " think more state which has served both religious and Korey says that the Communist Party C hernenko a lso denounced a nti­ deeply" about t he "dangers" of changing non-religious people so well." policy regarding Jews comprises four Semitism as a "nationalistic aberrat ion" the First Amendment guarantee of protec­ He said t he United States was a country nrcas: which is "alien to socialism." But, Korey t ion of religious liberty. with a strong religious com mitment l. A shutdown on emigrat ion - with a says, Chernenko coupled Zionism with Declaring that t he Committee firmly precisely because " minorities have been trickle allowed to demonstrate that the anti-Semitism. This, Korey says, "only opposed any constitutional amendment to free to follow their religious bents and U.S.S.R. is adhering to the Helsinki ac­ serves to encourage the bigot who mas­ allow school prayer as a "divisive act" cord and to use as a "convenient lever" querades his J ew-bait ing wit hin an anti­ because majorities have been circumspect which could injure the rights of religious about the rights of others." against refuseniks. Zionist framework." minorities and ot hers, Friedman said the 2. An intensified clampdown on the In addition to Chernenko, Korey calls Asserting that the function of the public human rights agency remained ready to schools is to cOmmunicate general privat e study of Hebrew and Jewish attention to another top Soviet leader. join with others to help "construct a con­ history - accompanied by inconsequen­ Grigory V. Romanov. Boss of Leningrad's knowledge, Waxman declared _that sensus around the teaching of such core "prayer is not a proper function of the tial gcst urcs suggesting concessions with Communist Part y, Romanov, according to American values as honesty, compassion, public schools and neither the public respect to cult urc in Yiddish. a prominent Jewish refusenik, Dr. Mikhail patriotism reverence and respect. for the schools nor children should be used as 3. A limit on contacts between Soviet Agursky, was instrumental in organizing rights, fre;dom and feelings of others." vehicles by religious bodies t.o advance J ews and ,Jews of the West, accompanied the infamous Leningrad trials of 1970-71. U.S. Saved From Divisiveness their viewpoints." by an effort " unprecedented in the last In those trials, ,Jews who sought to Gerald Kraft, president. of B'nai B'rith Howard Squadron, president of the several decades," to pub,licly praise per­ emigrate were given severe sentences. International, said t he vote saved the Un­ American Jewish Congress, said the vote sons wit h obviously J ewish names who Agursky noted that Romanov is the only ited States from the divisiveness that in the Senate was " a welcome reaffirma­ have se r ved t h e S o v i e t ca u·se Soviet leader who has publicly used the would permeate the classroom if the stu­ tion" of the "continuing vitality" of the "pat riot ically" or otherwise. ._ phrase "international Zionism" which, in dents were subjected to daily decisions principle of church-st ate separation, as 4. A broadening anti-Zionist media Soviet content, "carries inflama tory about differing versions of prayers. well as "a recognition of the critical impor­ campaign fea turing anti-Jewish stereotyp­ character," Korey says. Reiterating earlier arguments against tance of preserving religious pluralism." ing and bigotry and given "extensive local "The Leningrad media, no doubt under t he proposed amendment, Kraft said that (Continued on page 14) casting" wi th the establishment of the Romanov's direction, have been in the "Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet forefront of t he fight against 'Zionism,' in Republic." · t he assault upon Hebrew culture as Korey says that he expects no change allegedly subversive, and in the advocacy Mark Niedergang To Speak At Temple Emanu-EI "in the near future" in the Soviet policy of of the severance of relations between holding .Jews hostage in the relationship Soviet Jewry and Western Jewry,'' Korey by Robert Israel bet ween the Kremlin and Washington, nor declares. Tonight at 8: 15 p.m., following Fri­ in the thawing of that relationship. Korey not es that losif Begun, leader of day evening services at Temple However, Korey says, beyond the im­ the Jewish cultural movement, was Emanu-EI in P roviden ce, Mark mediate t rans it ional stage Chernenko may arrested last year by the Leningrad KGB N iedergang, a staff member of the init iate or respond to peace gestures with while visiting Leningrad "even though he Council for a Liveable World in Boston, the West to even a more popular base in li ved near Moscow and, therefore, under will speak on "The Nuclear Arms Race: the U.S.S.R. Even a limited dialogue, par­ ordinary circumstances, could not_c ome T he Current Situation." Niedergang ticularly on arms control, might result in under Leningrad's jurisdict ion." has been writing and-lecturing on arms improved conditions for Soviet J ewry and Equally disturbing, says Korey,is that a control and disarmament issues for the should not be excluded; he states. (Continued on page 14) past three years. F'or t wo years Neidergang was on the Public Educa­ tion Staff of the Inst it ute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, a research Letter To A Soviet Jew center that studies worldwide military by Varda Branfman forces and t he obstacles to - and op­ portunit ies for - disarmament. He was When I write to Mila She refuses to forget. also t he Director of the National l never know if the letter reaches her. that her grandfather had a name like Clearinghouse oft.he Nuclear Weapons Without an answer, wit hout her Moshe or Eleazar, and perhaps Freeze Campaign. His writings have voice coming back to me, she keeps hidden a prayer book, appeared in many publications, in- I send one, two, three letters­ a Kiddush cup, or the worn straps of .