Rhode Island J e wish 1 "Creating More Disunity," Historical Assoc. page4 1 36 Sessions St . Prov . R .I. 02906 , . · THE ONLY ENGLISH--JEWISH WEEKLY IN R.l. AND SOLTHEAST MASS. VOLUME LXXIV, NUMBE R 5 F RIDAY, JANUARY 9 , 1987 35¢ P ER COPY Peretz Resigns Over Sakharov: Hero To World Jewry LONDON (JTA) - Andrei ·appealed to President Podgorny to Soviet press description of it as Conversion Issue Sakharov, the Soviet Human prevent the execution of Mark reactionary and practically fasc ist. Rig hts champion, is a he ro to Dymshits and Eduard Kuznetsov. The Co mmittee's letter stated TEL AVIV (JTA) - Interior criticized by many Orthodox wo rld Jewry and to the Soviet He poi nted to extenuating t hat Zionism was no more than Minister Yitzhak Peretz resigned rabbis on grounds that Jewish law Jewish emigration movement. He ci rcumstances, noting that the t he idea of J ewish Statehood and last week rather than confirm the fo rbids stigmatizing converts. has not only spoken out fo r the group did not endanger anybody's one can only admire the J ewish identity of a person Peretz proposed other ri ght to emigrate to Israel but has life. persistence of an ancient and converted by a Reform rabbi. variations, including a law that stoutly defended the Jewish State Sakharov·s protest was taken persecuted people who, in very In his letter of resignation to would make it mandatory to and Zi onism at a time when both seriously. When the appeal of the difficult circumstances, have Premier Yitzhak Shamir, which he include the "previous status" of are reviled by his ow n country. Le ningrad Eleven was heard resurrected a long·vanished State. read to the media before reading it the hold er on identity cards. That This emerges fr om a record of before the Soviet Supreme Coun In 1972, Sakharov again to the Knesset, Peretz, who heads too was rejected. hi s support for Jewish causes in Moscow, he was admitted into intervened physically on a Jewish the Orthodox Shas Party, published last week on the eve of the courtroom and was able to issue when, after the massacre of denounced Reform conversions as Letter Of Resignation his release from internal ex ile, by inform Western reporters of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi, a "travesty" that threatened "the t he Institute of Jewish Affairs, the revocation of the death penalties Munich, he joined a small group of survival of the Jewish people." dec ided to resign apparently after research arm of t he World Jewish and the reduction of other Jewish activists demonstrating in consultation with t he Torah sages According to the law, a Congress. se ntences. Sakh arov's presence in front of the Lebanese Embassy in Minister's resignation lakes effe ct of his party. Shas is regarded as Writing in the lnstitute's t he courtroom encouraged the Moscow. 48 hours after it is submitted. the Sephardic equivalent of the journal, Soviet Jewish Affairs, J ews to believe they were not In 1973, he intervened over t he Some coalition members, mainly Ashkenazic Agudat Israel party William Korey, director of B'nai alone in the USSR struggle fo r much more politically sensitive Likud MKs, tried to persuade which is also governed by a council B'rith International Policy emigration. issue of American trade credits fo r Peretz to withdraw his of sage~. Research, reca ll s that as early as It was there, too, that he met the Soviet Uni on by supporting to resignation, but he insisted his His letter of resignation, be 1968, t he then 47-year-o ld Yel ena Bonner, a relative of t he the Jackson· Vnnik amendment in decision was final. fo rmally presente<l probably at physicist raised the Jewish issue Ku znetsov's, who later became his Co ngress linking U.S. economic Nevertheless. Shas, with a Sunday's Cabinet meeting, was on both internal and external wife a nd was to sha re his exile to concessions to a relaxation on fou r-man Knesset faction, is widely broadcast by the time it was levels. the closed city of Gorky. Sakha rov Soviet emi gration. expected to remain in the unity read to the Knesset. Peretz read it He sharply attacked the himself was born into a Russian ' Inter ven t ion Required coalition government, though in reply to Shulamit Aloni of the backsliding into a nti ·Semi tism in Orthodox family. Yelena Bonner Extraordinary Courage' without Cabinet representation. Citizens Rights Movement (C RM ) the appointments policy of the had a Jewish mother and Korey comments: "Sakharov's Peretz resigned to avoid havi ng who asked him when he wou ld Soviet Communist Party and said Armenian father. intervention required extraordi· to co mply with a Supreme Court ahi de by the Supreme Court ruli ng Soviet support fo r the Arabs had On March 19, 1971 , Sakharov na ry cou rage. It was the first time order to issue a Jewish identity l o register Miller as a ,Jew. given Moscow a direct turned to the question of t hat any Soviet citizen had ca rd to Shoshana Miller. a recent In the letter he refused to refer responsibility fo r the outbreak of anti .Jewish discrimination in publicly appealed over the head of im migrant from the U.S. who was to the complainant by her Hebrew the Six -Day War. Sakharov had employment a nd higher education his ow n gove rnment to a foreign converted to Judaism by an name, Shoshana, onl y as Susa n. described Russia's Arab allies as in. made possible by the internal gove rnment to act in direct He said his co nscience did not American Reform rabbi three no way sociali st, a nd sa id Israel passport system prevailing in t he opposition to the vital interests of allow him to register her as a ,Jew, years before she came to Israe l. had undertaken a preventive wa r. USSR whic h records citizens t he Kremlin. When, on arrival here, she was as ordered by the Supreme Court. Played A Prominent Role nationality. Together with two " He was called in by the Deputy denied the automatic citizenship because " Refo rm conversions are n In I 970 Tria ls other leading academics he Procurator General of the USSR to which every Jew is entitled. she travesty of ,Jew ish law. They can appealed to the Soviet leade rship and threatened with punishment. took her case to the high court. only lead to interm arriage.'' He In t he Leningrad and Ri ga trials LO aboli sh registration of Instead of capitulating, he Peretz, trying to avoid a hea ri ng, made it cl ea r he was referring to of Jewish activists, Sakharov assumed a prominent, if not nationality in passports and addressed an open letter to the agreed to register he r as a J ew with intermarriage between J ews questionnaires. U.S. Congress urging it to support the wo rd "converted" stamped on converted by Reform or central, role in the struggle fo r fundamental freedoms, adds In 197 1, too, he questioned the the ,Jackson-Yanik amendment, her ca rd. But the court rejected Conse rvative rabbis and those Soviet official view of Zionism and and warned that its abandonment that subterfuge and it was co nverted by Orthodox rabbis. Korey. On December 24, I 970, a Leningrad court handed down t. he J ewish desire to go to Israel. - being urged by the Nixon harsh ve rdicts, including two As a member of I he Soviet Administration - would mean a Menorah Ceremony death sentences for an attempted Co mmittee on Human Rights, he betrayal of the thousands of Jews plane hijacking. associated himself with a letter and non·,Jews who wa nt to Held At State House Four days later, Sakharov defending Zi oni sm against the emi grate." A Rescuer Comes Out Of The Shadows LONDON (JTA) - A man who wh ich organized the escape of keep its wa rt ime collaboration has secretly worked to rescue Jews All ied prisoners from with the ,Jews a strict secret not from lands of persecution fo r more Nazi·occupied Europe; former only because of the Nazis but than 40 yea rs has finally come out parac hutist Reuven Dafn e, because of the Palestine police of the shadows. uss ist.ant director of Yad Vashem; whom he ca lls "a bloody Shaike Dan, 76, is the subject of fo rmer Premier Shi mon Peres; nuisance." T hey were so a six -hour television documentary former Pres ident Yitzhak Navon anti-,Jew ish, he says, that "you to be screened in Israel on next and Knesset member Yitzhak wou ld think they were on the year's Independence Day. In it, he Artzi. wrong side in the wa r." will be honored by many of those Exploits During The War he brought to the sa fety of Eretz T he prog ram is entitled "Blind An Important Zionist Yi srael and by Israeli leaders, .Jump," a reference to Dan's Organizer including some of the people who exploits as one of the 26 Jews from Dan is port rayed in the program wo rked alongs ide him. Palestine parachuted into as the sin gle most important Last week a group of leading Nazi.occupied Europe in the midst Zio nist in orga nizing aliya from At the candielighting ceremony held last week at the S tate British J ews we re shown ex tracts of World War II.