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TELEPHONE  (617) 442-9681*     �           FEBRUARY 21, 1991
-             VOX. XLV1, NO. 12           !b
j ADAR 5751
Barney Frank Prods
President On Aid To Israel
By Susan Bloch
BOSTON - Upset with
Secretary of State James A.
Baker's sharp rebuke of Israel'
Ambassador Zalman Shoval,
and concerned that the
Congressionally-mandated $400
million loan guarantee to Israel
has not. yet been implemented,
"Massachusetts Congressman
Barney Frank has written a letter
to President Bush expressing his
displeasure and is circulating it
in the U.S. House of
Representatives, seeking
additional signatures. (See full
text of letter on page 11).
Mr. Baker, in a display of
temper rarely visited on allies,
summoned Israel's Ambassador
to the State Department last
week and. according to reports,
sharply criticized Mr. Shoval for
remarks expressed in an
interview with Reuters.
"I've never heard of such a
tantrum," said Congressman
Frank. "I think the Administra-
tion is upset because they are
trying to undo what Congress
did and didn't want to get caught
at it. Congress voted the loan
guarantee and the Administra-
tion is holding it up. The Israelis
have been pretty forthcoming. I
think the Administration got so
angry because they feel
vulnerable."
The Shoval rebuke is only the
latest sign of American
displeasure with Israel. There
have been reports that a
conversation between Finance
Minister Yitzhak Modai and
Deputy Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger was
deliberately misconstrued and
leaked. Informed sources state
that Mr. Baker also worked over
Defense Minister Moshe Arens
very harshly in a recent visit.
The source of Mr. Baker's
"tantrum," was Mr. Shoval's
remark: "We sometimes feel we
are being given the runaround,
although to the best of my
understanding Israel has fully
complied with the requests that
were raised in this connection by
the United States government."
Last year, Israel had asked the
United States government, not
for funds, but to guarantee a
$400 million loan to help resettle
the wave of Russian immigrants.
The large influx of Soviet Jews
into Israel can be traced, in part,
to the U.S. government's
decision to limit Soviet Jewish
immigration to the United States
at 50,000 a year. That restriction,
coupled with a growing rise in
anti-Semitism    in    the    Soviet
Representative Barney Frank
Union, has spurred large
numbers of Soviet Jews to leave
by any means possible, and to
emigrate to Israel, which accepts
them without restrictions.
Last April, Congress
approved the 1990 Supplemen-
tal Appropriations bill, known
as the "Dire Emergency Bill." It
contained the $400 million loan
guarantee, as well as $5 million
in direct assistance for
resettlement. The bill was signed
into law immediately by
President Bush.
The appropriation contained
the   proviso   that   the   money
would be used for resettlement
projects within the "Green
Line," Israel's pre-1967 borders.
Last fall, when Mr. Baker met
with Israel's Foreign Minister
David Levy, a memorandum
was drafted which restated the
State Department's restrictions,
and Israel's agreement to them.
The State Department also
requested detailed information
on Israel's budgetary outlays in
the occupied territories, with an
eye to monitoring new
settlement activity.
In testimony before Congress i
two weeks ago, the Secretary of
State said that Israel has not
provided the U.S. with the
additional information
requested. Israel, according to
Ambassador Shoval, feels all the
information has been forward-
ed. The Israeli Embassy released
a formal statement after the
Shoval-Baker meeting: "The
Ambassador explained (to Mr.
Baker) that some of the
(Reuters) comments were taken
out of context, although he said
that there is indeed embarrass-
ment and wonder in Israel
concerning the recurring delays
in giving the guarantees. It is
known that Israel has given all
the answers it was requested to
give."
The loan guarantee issue
appears to be the pretext for
deeper disagreement between
the two countries. Reportedly,
Mr. Baker was incensed with
another part of Mr. Shoval's
interview in which Israel sought
increased aid. "Not being part of
the coalition...we have not
received one cent of aid in spite
of the fact that we have had
immense direct military
costs...not to mention even the
indirect economic costs...We
demand that these needs and
necessities be addressed as
swiftly as possible."
When President Bush forged
the anti-Iraq coalition, the
United States asked Israel to
remain in the background,
despite the fact that Saddam
Hussein had threatened to
"incinerate half the country. In
the weeks before the war, Israel
was urged not to act in a pre-
emptive manner and was assured
that the U.S would cover Israel
in the event of attack.
In the first days of the war,
after Tel Aviv came under Scud
attacks, the U.S. transferred
Patriot missile batteries and
American crews to Israel to
defend the country. They have
been successful, but several
See Frank page 11
A Journey From The Land Of Glasnost
To The Land Of Gas Masks
By Glenn Richter
"You'll need bitachon (trust),"
the travel agent said when I
expressed concern about a very
tight Aeroflot-El Al connection
in Budapest. As it turned out, the
bitachon was more evident
within the Jews of Russia whom
my colleague, Henry Gerber and
I encountered in a USSR-Israel
journey on behalf of the Student
Struggel for Soviet Jewry.
There, the extraordinary became
surrealistically normal. Many
memories remain, but some
stand out as significant symbols.
? The opening of the second
annual conference of the Vaad,
the umbrellla body of nealy 100
Jewish communities and
another 100 Jewish organiza-
tions across the USSR. There
had been a debate whether to
mention the Red Army's
'crushing tank roll into
Lithuania, then Latvia.
Presidium co-chair Yosef Zissels
of Chernovtsy wanted the
gathering postponed in protest.'
Some American guests advised
silence. But in an act of courage
given the chill air now emanating
from the Kremlin, co-chair
Mikhail Chlenov, the venerable
linguist who was Natan
Sharansky's Hebrew teacher,
bids us rise for a moment of
silence for the martyred'
nationalists.
? Heraldic-like shields with
the names of 96 participating
Jewish communities span the
width of the balcony. Aroundus
are delegates from Frunze and
Tomsk in the far east, Tbilisi in
the proud Caucasus, Dnepro-
petrovsk in the historic Ukraine.
A handsome Central Asian Jew
wears a stunning purple robe
brocaded with gold. My friend
Yomtov, a Tat Jew from
Pyatigorsk, is back again, but
the middle-aged couple from
Perm, known for its notorious
labor camp, are not; perhaps
they've gone on aliyah.
Leningrad's Open Jewish
University, a dream fulfilled for
its creator Eliyahu Dworkin,
displays pictures of former
synagogues and Jewish
cemeteries its members have
discovered and lovingly cleaned
in the Ukraine and Byelorussia.
But when these young men and
women leave, who will carry on
their work?
?  The main Arkhipova Street
Synagogue is a beehive of
activity in the morning after the
minyan. Parents shepherd
elementary-age children to the
Jewish day school now in its
second year. Its growth, spilling
from the women's gallery now to
the synagogue's main floor, is
testament to the tender
nurturing of its Chabad
organizers.
?   The work of the Vaad's
Committee on Repatriation
takes up much of an afternoon
session. They discuss the nuts
and bolts of a more systemic
evacuation of Soviet Jews to
Israel. One participant rises to
report that local authorities are
forbidding his community from
leaving with its religious ritual
'terns. Outside, Moscovites are
lined up in front of banks,
frantically trying to change
suddenly worthless 50 and 100
ruble notes. "Gorbachev
reform," a young man sneers to
us. It's clear this is yet another
body blow to Soviet society
which    may    search    for
scapegoats.
?   Rumors and fragments of
stories whirl around. An elderly
Jew from Vitebsk, home of Marc
Chagall, relates in Yiddish his
single-handed attempt to build a
synagogue. A demonstration
outside the Kremlin against the
Baltic incursion attracted
800,000 Soviet citizens. No, a
foreign correspondent says, it
was 100,000- No matter. I
remember how lonely it was
when six of us from SSSJ
demonstrated in Red Square less
than three years ago. Ben-
Gurion Airport has just been
Scudded comes an authoritative
report. The story proves false. 1
mutter curses at Pan Am which
made Henry and I ship our
shortwave radios separately on
"security" grounds, only to have
them disappear.
?  A group of us, holding our
American, British and Canadian
passports, brush by fur-hatted
policemen to enter the Israeli
tConsulate on Bolshaya_Ordinka.
Street. In his white-painted
office, graced by an Israeli flag
and menorah, Consul-General
Aryeh  Levin succinctly paints
the picture of Russian aliyah. As
many as 1,000 Jews entering the
building daily, mostly to pick up
Israeli travel papers which will
allow them to make their final
visit to OVIR, the Soviet
emigration office. Only 10
Israelis are permitted to work at
the consulate, which functions as
an embassy. Their work is a
model of efficieny. No tea-toting
Tel Avivian bureaucrats here.
Despite the cold morning,
hundreds of bundled-up Jews
are lined up outside. Hawkers of
Hebrew-language primers and
maps of Israel work the crowd.
To them, the uncertainty of a life
ahead in Israel is preferable to
the disintegration of Soviet
politics, economy and society.
Finally, a rumor proves that
proves true. Henry hears that the
first commercial El Al flight
from Moscow to Tel Aviv is to
begin that night. It's been held
up over a year by Kremlin
officialdom. Henry connects
with the Israeli consulate and is
told there's a 50 percent chance
we can get on.
See Myth page 10