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From: cramer@sun.uucp (Sam Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Soviet Jews
Message-ID: <3201@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 29-Jan-86 13:01:18 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.3201
Posted: Wed Jan 29 13:01:18 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:43:05 EST
References: <488@decwrl.DEC.COM> <3780125@csd2.UUCP>
Reply-To: cramer@sun.UUCP (Sam Cramer)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 33

Asher Meth comments that he has just seen a "A Citizen's Summit" and asks
for more info on the fate of Soviet Jews.  I'd like to throw in a few comments 
on the "Citizen's Summit" and then recommend two books.

"Citizen's Summit":
These sorts of PR extravaganzas infuriate me.  While the Soviets are stamping
out Jewish culture in the USSR and conducting a ruthless war in Afghanistan to
subjugate a people who want nothing more than to be left alone, we hear silver
haired television "personalities" and supposedly humanitarian doctors explain 
that we should learn to live and let live.

Can you imagine what it would be like if Hitler were alive today?

Phil: "Mr. Hitler, you know that some say that you mistreat your Jewish
	citizens."
Hitler:  "Now Phil, I think you Americans have a slightly distorted picture of
	life in modern Germany.  We have no Jewish problem in Germany.  And
	anyhow, what about the problems of American blacks in Harlem?  You
	know Phil, this is a small planet which we both have the power to
	destroy - we need to break down the barriers of mistrust that exist
	between our two nations in the interests of world peace."

If you think that the above is far-fetched or contrived, listen to a Soviet
spokesman on TV sometime.

Books about the situation in the Soviet Union:
In terms of reading on the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union, many speak
highly of Elie Weisel's "Jews of Silence".  For a more general picture of 
oppression in the Soviet Union, read Solzhenitzhen's "Gulag Archipelago",
a master work which pounded the last nails into the intellectual coffin of 
Marxism.

Sam Cramer	sun!cramer