Former prisoner of Zion Ida Nudel thanked American Jews for helping to win her freedom and pleaded with them to be vigilant in their fight on behalf of Soviet Jewry, particularyly in light of new anti-Semitism inside the USSR.
"An anti-Semitic mood is developing very quickly in the Soviet Union," said Nudel, pointing to the rise of a chauvinistic hooligan group called Pamyat.
"Please be very careful. Don’t lose the opportunity to plead on behalf of Soviet Jewry," she urged more than 3,000 people Saturday night attending the 56th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations here.
Nudel spoke to the convention via a satellite video hookup from Jerusalem, where the once-exiled human rights activist arrived last month after waiting 16 years to emigrate.
CJF delegates appeared spellbound when the larger-than-life, sweetly smiling countenance of Nudel appeared on huge video screens. One could see the Western Wall behind Nudel in the distance.
"Shalom b’Yerushalayim" (Greetings from Jerusalem), Nudel called out to the convention guests. "Thank you for this moment, when I began to be a Jewish person in my own homeland."
QUESTIONS FROM DELEGATES
Nudel responded to questions from the convention floor, including one from keynote speaker Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
"It is a personal pleasure for me that you are in Israel," Kirkpatrick said. "My question is whether you have any advice on how we, as Americans, can help you as refuseniks."
Nudel responded, in her halting English, by expressing her thanks to American government officials and "to every girl, every boy, to every man, to every woman" who has taken part in the struggle on behalf of "Jews and non-Jews from the Soviet Union and other lands of oppression."
She urged "every Jew and free people who has the free time" to participate in the massive rally in Washington for Soviet Jews on Dec. 6, the eve of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to the United States.
Kirkpatrick, in her address to the CJF crowd, observed that Nudel’s release "depended not only on the permission of the Soviet Union, but on the existence of the State of Israel."
The former ambassador pointed out that 45 years ago there was no State of Israel, and Jews fleeing Nazi Europe "looked for a place to go, for a country to accept them. Had there been a State of Israel, there would have been no Holocaust."
Kirkpatrick’s lengthy, at times rambling, address focused on Israel’s "unceasing, relentless struggle for survival," peace and acceptance in the world community.
She reminded an audience well aware of Israel’s precarious status in the Middle East that the governments of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya have all "sworn the destruction of Israel."
Whereas in 1948 and 1967, this war took place on the battlefield, today the fight to destroy Israel has shifted to the halls of the United Nations, the former ambassador said. Its General Assembly, she said, has "step-by-step been transformed into a major arena of war" against Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization and various hard-line Arab states.
In particular, she decried the "infamous day on Nov. 10, 1975," when the General Assembly voted to equate Zionism with racism — an act, she said, intended to delegitimize Israel.
Kirkpatrick also praised Israel’s quest for normal relations with its Arab neighbors. "The search for peace has been the dominant passion of Israel’s history," she said.
Kirkpatrick’s and Nudel’s presentations capped four intense days of plenaries, forums, workshops and ad-hoc sessions at the CJF General Assembly, which is the largest annual gathering of Jews in North America.
Other highlights included an appearance by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and addresses by the outgoing CJF president, Shoshana Cardin, and her successor, Mandell Berman of Detroit.
EIGHT RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED
At a business session Friday morning, the convention adopted eight of nine proposed resolution on such policy issues as Jews in lands of distress, the U.N. resolution on Zionism and arms sales to Arab nations.
A resolution on discrimination by private clubs was sent back to the CJF resolutions committee after concerns were raised that it could bar member federations from holding events at predominantly Jewish country clubs.
One resolution on Catholic-Jewish relations notes progress in the dialogue between the two faiths since Pope John Paul II offended Jews by granting an audience to Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, who is suspected of complicity in Nazi atrocities.
"We welcome the Vatican’s commitment to expand initiatives on Holocaust education," the resolution says, "and we urge it to grant full and formal recognition to the State of Israel."
In another resolution, the CJF body recognizes that "two years after the historic airlift" of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, one half of that community is "still waiting in Ethiopia," separated from families in Israel.
Conceding that the "prospects for reunification with their kin in the immediate future are fraught with formidable challenges," the resolution nevertheless pledges that CJF will "continue to explore all effective ways to facilitate aliya and to assure the effective absorption of Ethiopian Jews" into Israel.
The convention also adopted an omnibus resolution on various domestic policy and "human needs" issues. Noting the "growing gap between the haves and have-nots," the resolution points out that 15 percent of the U.S. population — 33 million people — lives in poverty.
The resolution urges Congress and the administration to "come up with a fiscally responsible, but also compassionate budget," and calls specifically for the passage of proposed laws on assistance for the homeless, catastrophic health care, welfare reform and child care.
It also reaffirms a 1986 resolution calling on member federations and their agencies to "provide the care, concern and support in the best Jewish tradition to new groups of needy and their families, the sufferers of AIDS and those suffering from substance abuse."
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
