Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1987-12-03

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VOL.65   NO.50
DECEMBERS, 1987-KISLEV 1?
Devoted to American
and Jewish Ideals.
Sharansky Addresses Ohio Union Rally
President Reagan Meets With
Washington Mobilization Leaders
In the Cabinet Room of the White House recently,
President Reagan met with members of the Jewish
community who plan to lead a demonstration Dec. 6 on
behalf of Soviet Jews. The demonstration is being held
in Washington to lend support to the President in his efforts to secure the freedom of Soviet Jewry and will
take place one day before the arrival of General Secrer
tary Gorbachev. The President wanted to meet with
the group before the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Summit to express
his commitment to the cause of Soviet Jews and to assure the Jewish community that the plight of Soviet
Jewry will be an issue at the Summit. Pictured (1. tor.)
are Jerry Goodman, executive director of National
Conference on Soviet Jewry; a former refusenik Yuli
Edelstein, and Morris Abram, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Mary Dewhirst, associate director of the White House Office of Public
Liaison, is seated behind them. V
By Judith Franklin
News Editor
Support from the! West for
Refuseniks still in the Soviet
Union was what former
Refusenik and Prisoner of
Conscience Natan Sharansky wanted when he spoke to
the oyer 1,000 people in the
Ohio Union Ballroom on
Tuesday evening, Nov. 24.
And support was what he got
if the enthusiasm, exhibited
by those in attendance was
any measure.
Three standing ovations
and lengthy applause
greeted Sharansky, who was
released from the Soviet
Union in February 1986, after serving seven years in
prison and labor camps on
charges of "treason" and
"anti-Soviet agitation and
propaganda" for his Soviet
Jewish activism.
The rally was co-sponsored by the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation at OSU, the
Community "Relations Committee of the Columbus
Jewish Federation and the
Ohio-Drake Unions  Activi
ties Bbard and was part of a
city-to-city tour undertaken
by Sharansky to promote the
Dec. 6 Washington Mobilization for Soviet Jewry on the
eve of the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit.
Sharansky warned the
American Jewish community not to be lulled into a
false complacency by Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev's
new policy of "Glasnost,"
openness. "Glasnost doesn't
exist for the people in the
street," he said, explaining
that Gorbachev is not a human rights activists. Although he has allowed 8,000
refuseniks to leave the country, close to 400,000 remain
behind. In fact, a new law
making it more difficult to
emigrate from the U.S.S.R.
went into effect just last January, he noted.
By Plane, By Train, By Automobile
100,000 Could Attend Summit Rally
NEW YORK (JTA)-No
one is giving exact figures,
but if current travel plans
pan out, as many as 100,000
demonstrators will descend
on Washington Dec. 6 for
"Freedom Sunday for Soviet
Jews."
That figure includes Jews
arriving on some 60 airline
flights, many of them chartered for the day; thousands
of buses, and from parts of
the country as far away as
Seattle, Wash., and with
Jewish communities as
small as that of Duluth,
Minn.
Organizers of the mobilization, who include members from most of the major
national Jewish organizations in North America, are
already saying it will be the
largest demonstration for
Jewish causes ever held in
the nation's capital.
It is certainly this year's
most galvanizing event in or-
. ganized,   North  American
Jewish life, with communities canceling and rescheduling events planned months
ago for next Sunday.
The United Jewish Appeal,
for instance, has moved its
National Campaign Cabinet
meeting from New York to
Washington so that UJA
leaders can participate in
the demonstration.
And. in Boston, the Jewish
community has canceled its
Super Sunday fund-raising
' event and plans to turn out at
least 1,000 people for the
Washington rally. Demonstrators will travel by train,
aboard two chartered planes
and on at least 20 buses. Hillel groups on area campuses
are busy signing tip students
for the trip. The event has
"really struck at young people's hearts," said Philip
Perlmutter.executive director of the JCRC of Greater
Boston,       V
In Kansas City, Mo., 300
people are already signed up
He feels that Gorbachev
has tried to change his
image to encourage trade
with the West. By allowing
Refuseniks whose names are
well known in the West to
emigrate, he has made it
more difficult for the rest to
leave, fooling those in the
west into thinking the struggle is over. "That is why it is
important what message he
gets when he comes for the
Summit. If he sees he has
succeeded in making us
complacent, he will only release 8,000. If he'll see he
can't fool us and our struggle
continues, then he will make
bigger concessions,"
Sharansky noted.
He emphasized that it was
knowing of the support for
his cause in the West which
sustained him' through his
long   interrogation  and
imprisonment, often in solitary confinement in a small,
dark, cold punishment cell
on a diet of bread and water.
He also credits Western concern and pressure with saving his life and ultimately,
with winning his release.
He asked for a continuation of that support for those
still left in the U.S.S.R. "I
call on each of you to join us
on Dec. 6 in Washington for
this rally. The KGB said my
fate was in their hands. You
proved them wrong. They
think the fate of our brothers
in the Soviet Union is in their
hands. We are those who can
prove them Wrong," he concluded.
In addition to the 8 p.m.
rally at OSU, Sharansky's
Columbus visit included
speaking before many other
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 11)
for spots on three chartered
planes. According to Judy
Hellman, associate director
of Kansas City's Campaign
to the Summit committee,
Jewish delegates will be
joined by non-Jewish students .from Corning, Iowa;
two students representatives
elected by the William Jewel
Baptist College,in Liberty,
Mo., and leaders of three
farming associations in Missouri and Kansas. .
San Francisco is also
planning a week of activities, in addition to sending a
delegation to the rally. The
first will be a vigil in Union
Square on Dec. 6, according
to Ruthellen Harris and Dan
Hoffman, co-chairs of the
Bay Area Summit Task,
Force....
Twenty people will travel
the 3,000 miles from Washington state to Washington,
D.C, according to July
Balint, chairperson of the
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 9)
Welcoming Natan Sharansky to Columbus on Tuesday, Nov. 24, were (top left photo)
Miriam Yenkin, Columbus Mobilization for Soviet Jewry chairwoman, and Nate Gordon (right), OSU B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation president. Sharansky's first stop on his
Columbus visit was Columbus Torah Academy (top right photo) where he spoke to a
student assembly. An evening dinner at Hillel (bottom left photo) was attended by 180
OSU student and Jewish community leaders. The dias included: (standing, 1. to r.)
Myles Brand, OSU vice president for academic affairs and provost; Rabbi Steve
Abrams, Hillel director; B. Lee Skilken, Federation president; David Frankel, president/Jewish Student Activities Board at OSU; Rabbi David Stavsky, president, Columbus Board of Rabbis; Dr. Jeffrey Tilson, chairman, Federation's Community Relations
Committee; Gene Burger, director of Community Relations at the Federation;
(seated) Alan H. Gill, Federation director; Miriam Yenkin, and Nate Gordon. Yenkin
chaired the evening rally (bottom right photo) which was attended by over 1,000 people.
She introduced OSU President Edward Jennings (center) and Sharansky. Photos by
Lorn Spolter.
Keep Up Fight For Soviet Jews, Ida Nuclei Tells CJF
MIAMI BEACH, FLA.,
(JTA) — Former prisoner of
Zion Ida Nudel thanked
American Jews for helping
to win her freedom and
pleaded with them to be vigilant in their fight on behalf of
Soviet Jewry, particularly in
light of new anti-Semitism
inside the USSR.
"An anti-Semitic mood is
developing very quickly in
the Soviet Union," said Nudel, pointing to the rise of a
chauvinistic hooligan group
called Pamyat.
"Please be very careful.
Don't lose the opportunity to
plead on behalf of Soviet
Jewry," she  urged more
than 3,000 people attending
the 56th General Assembly
of the Council of Jewish
Federation here. V
Nudel spoke to the convention via a satellite video
hookup from Jerusalem,
where the once-exiled human rights activist arrived
in October after waiting 16
years to emigrate.
CJF delegates appeared
spellbound when the larger-
than-life, sweetly smiling
countenance of Nudel appeared on huge video
screens. One could see the
Western Wall behind Nudel
in the distance.
"Shalom  b'Yerushala-
yim" (Greetings from Jerusalem), Nudel called out to
the convention guests.
"Thank you for this moment,
when I began to be a Jewish
person in my own homeland."
Nudel responded to questions from the convention
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 11)
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