Soviet Police Threaten Tbilisi Jews

In a telephone conversation with Jews in Tbilisi, the capital of Soviet Georgia, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry learned that the apartments of two brothers, Isai and Grigori Goldshtein, were searched on the night of Feb. 10 by a team of police and local prosecutors. Jewish educational material was seized and the brothers were threatened with arrest and trial. The NCSJ also reported that Isai’s wife, Elizabeta Bykova, was recently threatened with imprisonment in the prison camp of Magadan if she persisted in attempts to obtain exit visas to leave for Israel.

The material confiscated at Isai’s apartment, alleged to be “subversive,” included tapes for Hebrew language study, mezuzzot, a Hebrew language grammar book, “One Thousand Words;” a Hebrew conversation book by Shlomo Kodesh, letters to Israel, receipts of registered letters sent to Israel, and a new Soviet publication, Lolshako’s “Zionism in the Service of Imperialism” an anti-Semitic work, the NCSJ said.

Grigori happened to be away from his apartment at the time of the search, but material confiscated from his apartment included receipts of letters sent to Israel. The searches were carried out by a team of five men from the local prosecutor’s office, headed by a Mr. Mahardze. The brothers were told that they were not placed under arrest, but a dossier was opened on them for “slandering” the USSR.

Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek said last night that East Jerusalem Arabs are not ready to participate in the city’s political affairs. “We would welcome them but they are not ready for it,” he said at a meeting of the executive committee of the Union of Socialist Youth. Kollek explained that the Arabs themselves feared that if they became active in the City Council their relatives in Arab countries would suffer.

Some 400 French personalities in support of ISRAC, the overseas representative of the Israeli left-wing extremist party, Matzpen, have signed a petition condemning “torture in Israel” of 12 “prisoners” charged with membership in the Syrian-directed spy and sabotage ring. Among the signatories are writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, leftist book publisher Francois Maspero, writer and professor Laurent Schwartz, Maxime Robinson, Charles Bettelheim, Jean-Jacques de Felice and Trotskyist leader Alain Krivine. Many of the signatories are Jewish.

A total of 31,652 immigrants from the Soviet Union arrived in Israel during 1972. One-third of them came from the Georgian Republic, Absorption Minister Natan Peled told the Knesset, and about 2000 came from Bokhara. About 40 percent of the Soviet emigres have settled in development areas, Peled said.

Jews in Samarkand who wish to apply for exit visas have a very difficult time, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported. The over there has been closed. Application forms are sold under the table for 10 rubles.