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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, December 8, 1983 - Page 9
World-National
By
DAVID BIRKAN
On the eve of Chanakali, 1969, pilot Mark Dymsliitz suggested to fellow dissidents that they escape the USSR by hQacking an afaplane. The situation was exploited by the Soviet authorities in an attempt to crush the new reawakening of Judaism in the country.
The national census at the end of the 60s showed that the number of Jews in the USSR dropped from the previous decade to 2.15 million, a loss of 117,000, or ^.2%. The population as a whole increased by 15.8%. Assimilation — facilitated by the government's systematic suppression of Jewish communal, religious and'eiducational mstitu-tions — and intermarriage reduced the country's Jewish population to an all-time low. For the 50 or so years preceding World War I, it stood at close to 6 million.
Undisclosed by the census was a new Jewish renaissance, thanks in part to the Six Day War. Simchat Torah saw thousands of Jews braving KGB harassment to demonstrate in front of Moscow's main synagogue. The study of Hebrew, under an unofficial ban as long-lived as the Soviet regime itself, was pursued through the clandestine circulation of manuscripts, poetry, newsletters, tapes of songs, and textbooks or fragments of textbooks. Hebrew was taught in underground ulpans in major cities, with the teachers often no more than one lesson ahead of their students.
The despondency recorded Just five years earlier by Elie Wiesel hi his Jews of Silence was being replaced by a level of Jewish conscious* ness unprecedented since the dark days of Hitler^s invasion.
Dymshitz, then 43 and approaching the end of his flying days, balked at the endless cycle of applying and re-applying for an exit visas to Israel. Encouraged by an acquaintance later suspected of being a KGB agent provocateur, he approached Leningrad's underground Jewish circle with his plan. Its leaders, after much discussion over its feasibility and unlawful nature, dismissed the plan and tried to talk Dymshitz out of it.
Riga*s underground circle proved more supportive. Despite initial foul-ups and mounting evidence of a trap, its members decided to
go ahead. Explaked a participant, Sylvia Zaimanson: "We noticed we were being followed, but we could no longer turn back... to the past, to the senseless waiting, to life with Our luggage packed. Our dream of living in Israel was incomparably stronger than the fear of the suffering we might be made to endure."
At 8.30 a.m. June 12, 1970, 12 would-be hijackers, mostly from Riga, were arrested on the tarmac of Leningrad's Smolny Airport before even boarding their flight.
Within two hours, the bulk of the Leningrad circle was also arrested, far from the airport — at home, work, and, in one case, on vacation in Odessa 850 miles away — and cha:rged with complicity. The Jewish material confiscated from their ransacked homes was entered as evidence for their "slandering the Soviet system."
The so-called hijackers went on trial in December. The alleged hostility of Zionism to Communism was the prosecution's stress. The verdict was rendered in just over a week. Despite proof that no harm was intended, let alone committed, Dymshitz and student Edwa;rd Kuznetson were sentenced to death, the others received from four to 15 years hard labor.
The impending trials of Jewish dissidents across the country were announced, the activism fueling the Jewish renaissance was threatened with obliteration.
Unexpected consequences of the first trial, however, upset the Byzantine Soviet machinations. World opinion was aroused at the severity of the sentences. Soviet Jews themselves rose in outrage.
Massive objections were voiced by Western governments and press. Even Communist organs were stunned: Italy's L'Unita, for example, headlined its Dec. 27 story on the trial as "an incompfehensible judgment."
Within the USSR, Jewish objections ranged from individual letters of outrage to large-s^Ie sit-ins and hunger strikes, some taking place in the kremlin itself. '
The USSR relented under the combined pressure. The sentences were lightened. Emigration rose from 1,000 fai 1970 to 14,500 hi
1971./-:
Jewish activism within the USSR, despite subsequent trials, flared to new heights.
Toint political-militafy group established
US.'Israel Strike strategic^^^
[Cont'd, from page 1]
headquarters in Beirut in October.
Neither, he said, should the U.S.-Israel political/military group seen as a threat to any other Arab country.
In spite of these disclaimers, the Arabs are said to be concerned by the renewed Israel-U.S. rapprochement, although they realize that Reagan remains committed to the 1982 peace plan Israel utterly rejects as an intrusion on its security.
If words mean anything, the Arabs have reason to be upset by the Reagan-Shamir talks.
The president reconfirmed **the long-standing bonds of friendship and cooperation" characterizing U.S.-Israel relations, and expressed
WASHINGTON-
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just released a study which details the critical shortage in hospital facilities, medical personnel and evacuation aircraft that the U.S. armed forces will face in the event of a Middle East/Persian Gulf conflict.
Although the study, entitled Israeli Medical Support for the U.S. Armed Forces, is not concerned primarily with Lebanon, the brutal bombing of the Marine barracks there had underscored the nature of the problem.
the study reveals that the services currently could provide no more than half the 17,000 in-theatre beds that would be required for a large-scale conflict in the Gulf. There would also be "desperate shortages" of skilled medical and support personnel to man the facilities and a shortfall in the number of medical evacuation aircraft needed for transporting casualties.
The study then analyzes alternative interim solutions. Existing facilities In Europe are several thousand miles away, requiring a large but unavailable aero-medical evacuation capacity, and involving long and possibly harmful delays in providing proper treatment. The Arab states of the region are neither able-nor will^ ing to provide the necessary assistance, given their own severe shortages of modern hospital capacity.
Israel is the one state of the region ^Ith a large, modem hospital system and it has, on several occasions, indicated a willingness to help.
his determination ^*to strengthen and develop them in the cause of our mutual interest."
The Israeli Prime Minister, who \^as accompanied by Defence Minister Moshe Arens, said upon leaving the U.S. that he was returning "with feelings of achievement."
Shamhr, the first Israeli leader to visit Washington in 18 months, said he had found a strong desire In the White House to cement the historic relationship "in a concrete and comprehensive manner."
He went on to say that the U.S. perceives Israel as "a major factor for stability" in the Middle East and a true ally of Washington in the face of what he called Arab instability and totalitarian aggression.
Turning to the common interests which bind the two countries, Shamir stated: "We share common objectives in the Lebanese situation. We want to deter and check Syrian annexationist designs on Lebanon and Syrian aggression backed by the Soviets."
Israel and the U.S. are divided over the wisdom of Reagan's peace proposals (which call for an immediate freeze of Israeli settlement activity and for an eventual West Bank-Jordanian association) and Washington's interest in supplying conservative Arab regimes like Jordan and Saudi Arabia with sophisticated arms.
Last week, Reagan and Shamir played down such differences, which are indeed serious and of a longstanding nature.
^^Disagreements between good friends do not alter the unique and sturdy foundation of our relationship," the President declared, no doubt causing apprehension In Arab capitals.
"It's normal to have differences,'' said Shamir, who said that the West Bank settlements controversy is "greatly exaggerated" and reiterated the Israeli position that the dormant autonomy discussions on the Palestinians should be resumed.
As expected, Reagan and Shamir voiced full support for the May 17 Lebanese withdrawal pact, opposed by Syria,
the Soviet Union and their allies.
Following his talks with Lebanese President Amin Gemayel, who is under tremendous Syrian pressure to scrap the agreement, Reagan said he stood by It as "the best and most viable basis for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.''
Earlier, in company with Shamir, Reagan said that "every effort" should be made "to expedite" the May accord, engineered by American diplomacy when Israeli and Lebanese negotiators appeared to be getting nowhere.
Both men affirmed their commitment to a sovereign, independent Lebanon, the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the security of Israel's northern border.
Shamir, saying he wanted to call home his troops from Lebanon, told reporters in no uncertain terms that Israel would not change "a word" of the May agreement.
There were further developments flowing from the U.S.-Israel summit:
• The U.S. has reportedly agreed to resume shipment of cluster bomb artillery shells to Israel — the delivery of which was suspended during Israel's siege of Beirut in the 1982 Lebanese war.
V • Israel- will be permitted to bid on projects to supply the U.S. armed forces. This will give the Israeli arms industry, already one of the largest, a much-needed tonic. (The U.S. previously gave Israel permission to use aid funds to build the Lavie jet.)
• Reagan announced that the two countries will discuss the idea of setting up a free trade zone — an arrangement similar to one Israel has with the European Economic Community.
• Shamir admitted that he is worried about Israel's relationship with Egypt, which has displayed no real interest in normalization as a result of Israeli policies and its desire to reestablish links with the Arab world. The U.S. is said to have exerted pressure on Egypt to live up to its treaty obligations with Israel, but to no avail so far.
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