At Chanukah Celebration, Reagan Pledges U.s.-israel Bonds Must Not and Will Never Be Weakened

President Reagan lit one of the five candles during the Chanukah celebration at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington here yesterday and pledged that the “bonds” between Israel and the United States are “growing stronger and they must not and never will be weakened.”

“Israel’s quest for peace and security is in constant peril from those driven by hatred and violence,” the President said. He noted that he had told Israeli Premier Yitzhak Shamir last week that “Israel has a friend in America and good friends stand together.”

Reagan said that “Chanukah is symbolic of the Jewish struggle to resist submission to tyranny and to sustain its spiritual heritage. No people have fought longer, struggled or sacrificed more to survive, to grow, to live in freedom than the people of Israel. Whether we be Americans or Israelis, we are all children of Abraham, children of one God.”

The President reaffirmed the U.S. determination to defend Israel at the United Nations. He said he wanted to make it clear once again “if Israel is ever forced to leave the United Nations, the United States and Israel will leave together.”

Although the center was crowded with hundreds of people for its annual family Chanukah celebration, only 227 persons could sit in the auditorium for the lighting ceremony at which Reagan participated. But those present represented every part of the community, from infants in their parents arms to the elderly.

Reagan was presented with a menorah by the Center’s president, Philip Margolius, who noted it was a “symbol of peace and freedom.” Margolius said the menorah is lit not only to remember the heroic deeds of the Maccabees “but to state forever to the world as our brethren in Israel do every day that the lamp of liberty and freedom will also bum brightly in our hearts.”

REAGAN MOVED BY SOVIET IMMIGRANT

During the ceremony, Reagan was visibly moved by Tamar Feldblum, an immigrant from the Soviet Union, who stressed that Jews in the USSR are still “trapped” and denied their basic human rights. Mrs. Feldblum, who is now a U.S. citizen, pointed out that in another part of the Center some 50 Soviet immigrants were being started along the process toward their own citizenship. “Now we shall have a real home, we shall belong,” she said.

Mrs. Feldblum also spoke about her 10-month old son who was born in the United States and who, she said, “will never know persecution” and “who will be able to celebrate Chanukah, Passover and be a proud Jew.”

Reagan said that on behalf of the more than 230 million Americans, he wanted to tell these immigrants “welcome to your new family.” He said it was “wonderful” that the American Jewish community was using Chanukah to assist Jews in the Soviet Union.

PLEDGES TO HELP SOVIET JEWS

“Today Soviet Jews are fighting for their future and their freedom as the Maccabees once did,” Reagan declared. “But their fight is a peaceful one.” The President pledged that “we will not remain silent” in helping Soviet Jews in their struggle to emigrate or in their effort to practice their religion within the Soviet Union.

As Reagan and others lit the candle on the large menorah, the sixth grade chorus of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, which is across from the Center, sang the blessings. Reagan left the stage to go to the helicopter for the flight back from this suburban Washington location to the White House. But suddenly he returned and shook the hand of each of the 20 youngsters in the chorus who earlier also sang Hebrew and Yiddish songs.