‘Hope for Freedom’

Your editorial (Feb. 12), “Hope for Freedom,” correctly points out that Soviet Jewry and human rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky’s release from a Soviet labor camp produced a sweet sense of elation and satisfaction. Shcharansky embodies the right stuff that genuine heroes are made of: courage, empathy, dignity, respect for justice and human rights and unusual perseverance under the most adverse and miserable conditions.

The editorial is further quite accurate to call attention that while the West can applaud Shcharansky’s release, there are more than 300,000 Soviet Jews whose requests to emigrate have been refused. Indeed, emigration figures in 1985 dropped to a little more than 1,000 compared to more than 50,000 in 1979.

One vital avenue, however, that was overlooked in Shcharansky’s release by the media is the ugly fact that the situation facing Soviet Jews today is worsening. The Soviet campaign, in essence, goes beyond trying to intimidate and harass Jews who wish to leave the Soviet Union; it threatens the very survival of Judaism in the Soviet Union.

The crackdown on Jewish religious and cultural life is part of Moscow’s official anti-Semitic campaign. It has now reached the point where the Soviet media regularly defames Jews in terms reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The official youth newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravada,” for example, declared in March, 1983, that the meaning of Zionism is “to turn every Jew, no matter where he lives, into an agent of the Jewish oligarchy, into a traitor to the country where he was born.”

Moreover, harassment of Soviet Jewish activists has become more brutal, and frequently coincides with attacks on Jews in general. For example, during the past two years Hebrew teachers were convicted on charges ranging from anti-Soviet slander to hooliganism. One of the teachers, a Moscovite Jew named Yuli Edelstein, was beaten by the police upon arrest, accused of possession of narcotics and sentenced to a three-year prison term. Another Hebrew teacher had a gun planted in his apartment and still another was attacked by a stranger on a street corner and then arrested for starting a fight.

Since then, other Hebrew teachers and cultural activists have been arrested. Since the few synagogues in the Soviet Union are forbidden to hold classes or to teach Hebrew, this adds up to a concerted attack by Soviet authorities on the very notion of Jewish identity.

Now, as the United States begins a more stable and regular dialogue with the Soviet Union, and as American groups and individuals continue their vigil on behalf of those Jews who wish to leave the Soviet Union, the right to be a Jew--without the fear of physical and legal recriminations--should be strongly asserted.

GRAY DAVIS

Assemblyman

43rd District

Los Angeles