cher@ihlpf.UUCP (Mike Cherepov) (10/14/86)
I guess I will cross-post to soc.culture.jewish, the issue belongs there. Barry Shein, about a statement by an economics instructor that "large percentage of Soviet MDs are Jewish, therefore Jews have large influence in the USSR": > The point is (whatever the original poster's intention was) that > such things are arguable. How you refute it, false or not, is subtle. > So, go refute the conclusion if you disagree, find a methodology for > measuring and defining "influence" in the USSR as a function of > occupation or whatever. But to discredit the person who made the > claim (as AIA seems to wish to do) seems a cowardly way to accomplish > this. Boy, would I be embarrassed if Barry meant the above to be a joke. Like old Gorby said in Paris: where else do Jews live better then in the USSR?... Or to quote Don Black: what genocide? OK, here's the refutation of the claim that the Soviet Jews are influential: the state persecutes manifestations of cultural and religious life, state-conducted antisemitic campaign (some first-hand experience here) includes hiring, job promotions, university admission policies. As a result hundreds of thousands of Jews risked their hides for a chance to emigrate. The influence (as if Barry Shein did not know) comes from the party apparatus. The intelligentsia, according to the official ideology, is a social subclass, inferior to workers and peasants in their dedication to communist goals and ideals. Regular Soviet docs are paid no more then workers. Rather then "find methodology", do "measuring and defining ... as a function", and go to great lengths to prove the obvious, I suggest that Barry try to defend the idea of big Jewish influence in the USSR (if he believes it); i.e: I'm dying to know what the manifestations of that influence are. Did the Jews use this influence to screw themselves? About AIA: a person who makes indefensible statements discredits him/herself. AIA or not, weeding out incompetent instructors whether they teach about Aryan superiority or Soviet prosperity is highly desirable. I did not understand the blurb about cowardice. Mike Cherepov