Soviet Jewry, like the Soviet Union itself, is not ,simply one unit, but a collection of communities within Judaism. Best known are the Ashkenazim who live on the western borders, to where a large proportion of Anglo-Jewry traces its origin. The Republic of Georgia, on the other hand is the home of a fiercely independent … Read more
Why did you involve yourself in an attempt to recreate Jewish culture in the USSR? My friends and I realised that one of the main problems of Soviet Jewry now is the problem of survival. Our activities were not so much directed at recreating Jewish culture but at helping those who wished to know something … Read more
Activists in Moscow believe that a mass show trial of Helsinki watchdog committee activists might soon take place if the hard-line policy of the Kremlin against its critics continues. Such a trial could follow the pattern of the notorious Moscow show trials of the 1930s. The news that Professors Benjamin Fain and Mark Azbel have … Read more
NO JAIL FOR THOUGHT, by Lev Kopelev. 268 pages. (Seeker and Warburg) £6. Lev Kopelev is best known in the west not so much for his own writing but for his friendship in the camps with Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It was Kopelev on whom the great author based the character of the idealistic Jewish Communist Rubin … Read more
There have been ominous developments in the case of Anatoly Shcharansky, the arrested Jewish leader and human rights activist. Among Moscow Jews who have been taken for interrogation to Lefortovo prison, where Shcharansky is being held, is Professor Benjamin Fain, who was asked for details of Shcharansky’s work within the Jewish movement. The line of questioning … Read more
Why was there a need to set up a committee to monitor the Helsinki agreement? The implementation of the Helsinki agreement – and in particular its human rights clauses – is essential for the development of the USSR. It would create a healthier and stronger society. How the committee originate? It was founded on May … Read more
US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance flew out of Moscow last week leaving the issue of human rights in a stalemated limbo and perhaps paving the way for a renewed repression of the Jewish activists. Vance and Soviet party-leader Leonid Brezhnev agreed to disagree on this issue as well as on arms limitation. If, … Read more
SOVIET Jews are preparing for the Festival of Passover in a state of fear and depression unequalled since the height of the Stalinist era. Despite the release of Dr Mikhail Shtern half way through his eight-year prison sentence and the news over the weekend that he has been granted an exit visa for Israel, the … Read more
SOVIET Jews are facing their worst crisis since the collective trials of 1970. Mathematician Anatoly Shcharansky, seized by the KGB last week, is the first major Moscow activist to be arrested since the new movement came into existence after the Six-Day war. He is being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, accused of “anti-state activities”. This … Read more
VORKUTA, by Edward Baca. 352 pages (Constable). 15.95. In 1945, Edward Buca was a 19-year-old member of the Polish Home Army. Poland at the end of the war was no place for an ardent nationalist. The victorious Red Army was in no mood to tolerate an independently-minded man and Buca soon found himself in a … Read more