The Harsh Plight of the Soviet Jews

WHILE concern mounted in the U.S. over the harassment of Soviet diplomats by a small band of Jewish militants (see THE NATION), Moscow's retaliatory campaign against Americans tapered off last week. There was no easing, however, of the Soviet propaganda campaign accusing Washington of complicity in the Jewish Defense League's guerrilla tactics against Russian diplomats. Even the Chief Rabbi of Moscow joined in the protests. In a letter delivered to the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin wrote: "Soviet Jews do not want the help of unsolicited protectors and fascist Jews.''

Despite the obvious political overtones of his letter, Rabbi Levin was undoubtedly correct that terror tactics against Soviet diplomats harm the cause of Jews in Russia. Yet no matter how wrongheaded the acts of the Jewish Defense League in the U.S. have been, one of the organization's basic arguments is accurate: Jews in the Soviet Union are routinely subjected to harsh treatment.

Officially, there is no discrimination in the Soviet Union, and many Jewish artists and writers, scientists and physicians, engineers and economists, are members of the privileged elite. There is Veniamin Dymshits, the Deputy Premier in charge of Soviet industry. Economist Yevsei Liberman was responsible for a brief attempt at loosening Moscow's rigidly centralized economic control, and his ideas are now widely emulated in Eastern Europe. An estimated one-third of the Soviet Academy of Sciences is Jewish. Bolshoi Prima Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and perhaps 90% of the Bolshoi Orchestra are Jewish, as are Violinists Leonid Kogan and David Oistrakh and Pianist Emil Gilels. Nor do the Soviet Jews face the open, rampant persecution that German Jews endured in Hitler's Third Reich. But that is small consolation for the vast majority of Russia's 3,500,000 Jews who suffer job discrimination, racial slurs, and the anxiety that arises from being regarded as outsiders or even potential traitors by many of their fellow citizens.

Cruel Dilemma. The Soviet Union is, of course, a dictatorship that denies all its citizens many basic human rights taken for granted in the West. But the Jews are treated worse than most. Despite its slogans about equality. Communism has always been ambivalent on the Semitic question. In the early days, many leading Bolsheviks were Jewish, including Leon Trotsky. Under Stalin,

Russia's age-old anti-Semitism resurfaced. Later it was compounded by the Kremlin's strong pro-Arab policy, which has cast Israel and Jews elsewhere in the role of enemies.

This development has only intensified the cruel dilemma that has confronted the Soviet Jew for years. Soviet policy is against all religions, but the Jew is discouraged to a far greater degree than either the Christian or Moslem from trying to practice his faith. In all of the Soviet Union, there are only about 60 synagogues and a dozen or so ordained rabbis. At the same time, the Soviet Jew cannot shed his identity and become a fully assimilated Russian even if he wants to. No matter where he was born, he is always listed as a Jew in the domestic passport that all Soviet citizens must carry.

Yet the Jew lacks the privileges that other Soviet ethnic groups enjoy. Other nationalities, such as the Ukrainians and Armenians, have their own provinces where they can speak their language and exercise a degree of cultural autonomy. The Jew is forbidden his own schools, and he cannot learn Hebrew or Yiddish in the public schools; they simply are not taught. Since the 1940s, the Hebrew and Yiddish theater has been almost completely closed down. The only Yiddish periodical that is allowed to be published is a monthly journal edited by a party hack. The so-called Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan, which Stalin set up as a showplace in Siberia, has only 30,000 Jews in a population of 163,000. The Soviet Jew is also handicapped by a strict quota system in universities and higher training schools. Jews may make up only 3% of the total, and while that figure is twice as high as the Jewish percentage of the Soviet population, it is nonetheless impossible for many highly qualified young Jews to receive higher education.

One Link. Dr. Arye Lev-Ran, who left Russia in 1967 and now lives in Israel, writes: "In buses and trains, and in queues outside stores, [the Soviet Jew] constantly hears the words zhid [yid] and A brashka [Abie], and overhears how crafty Jews grab up everything and are the cause of all shortages. There is probably not a single Jew in the Soviet Union who has not heard a drunkard voice his regret that Hitler did not finish off all the Jews."

The situation has grown worse because of the recent international tension. Many older Jews are being discharged from their jobs Young Jews are finding it more difficult than ever to get into universities or to get suitable jobs later. Some young Jews have gone to Siberia voluntarily in order to study at less crowded universities there. Police surveillance and harassment are on the rise, as evidenced by the raids on 50 Jewish homes in scattered communities following the arrest of the alleged hijackers in Leningrad last June.

The present wave of abuse began shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967. Because the swift defeat of Moscow's Arab allies by Israel made Soviet foreign policy appear inept, the Kremlin needed a scapegoat. Soviet propagandists blamed a worldwide conspiracy of Zionists backed by neo-Nazis and U.S. imperialists. Authorities began publishing books and pamphlets portraying Jews as vile drunks, rapists and drug pushers. In Love and Hate, Author Ivan Shevtsov has the Jewish villain kill his mother to gain his inheritance. The Soviet press also berates the Jews for their "God-chosen-ness" and argues that "Judaism and Zionism educate the Jews in the spirit of contempt and even hatred for other people."

New Consciousness. The campaign has had one effect that the Soviets did not expect. It has reawakened ethnic consciousness in young Jews, who were generally believed to have favored assimilation into Soviet society.

Using the underground samizdat (literally, self-publishing) system, young

Jews type Hebrew songs, poems and folklore and pass them on to friends. One of the most popular sources is Leon Uris' Exodus, which is read not for its love story or heroics but rather for its passages on Jewish history. As a sign of solidarity, youngsters began showing up outside synagogues during Hebrew holy days to sing and do Jewish folk dances. Ominously, KGB (secret police) agents also showed up, taking pictures and trailing some of the participants to their homes.

Perils of Exodus. Like other Soviet citizens, Jews are forbidden to emigrate freely. Even applying for an exit visa is regarded as gross ingratitude, if not downright disloyalty, to the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, some 40,000 Jews during the past three years have dared to risk official wrath by filing applications to leave for Israel. Only a bare trickle of about 2,000 a year have been allowed to leave. Almost all of those who have applied for visas have lost their jobs and been subjected to intimidation and insults by police and neighbors.

Mrs. Esther Aisenstadt, who had taught English for 23 years at an advanced institute in Moscow, was discharged shortly after she applied for a visa. Alek Volkov, 33, a professor of piano at the Kharkov conservatory, was demoted to page turner for other professors. The KGB also regularly searches the homes of visa applicants and sometimes carts them off to jail on trumped-up charges.

There is no way of knowing how many Jews would seek to leave if they could apply without fear of retaliation; admittedly rough estimates indicate that as many as 300,000 would apply immediately. Undoubtedly the majority of Soviet Jews regard themselves as loyal citizens and would prefer to stay. There are some Jews who, out of either fear or conviction, are prepared to take part in staged press conferences in which they denounce Israel as an imperialist power and pledge their complete allegiance to the Soviet Union. But there is also an embryonic civil rights-type movement among some 100,000 or so young Jews, mostly engineers and scientists. Their goal is to break down the official barriers against their advancement and gain complete acceptance in Soviet society.

For Soviet Jews, world opinion offers partial protection at best. The recent worldwide outcry against the Kremlin's treatment of its Jewish citizens undoubtedly had an impact--the death sentences meted out to two Jews in Leningrad were commuted and a second round of trials of Jews was postponed. Even so, foreign opinion can accomplish only so much. The problem is that Soviet Jews can do even less--unless they are willing to take grave risks. That point was dramatically illustrated last week when Amsterdam's daily De Telcgraaf arranged to telephone, in a still undisclosed manner, a Jewish family in Riga. Realizing that the KGB might well be recording the call, the paper's reporter asked: "Aren't you afraid they are going to use all this against you?" Said a woman at the other end: "They have given us so much misery we are not afraid any more." When the reporter wound up the call, he told the Riga Jews: "We will call you again next week if you want us to." The reply: "That's good. If we are still here."

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