Soviet Presswatch: Israel as Portrayed by Soviet Emigrants Who Return to the Motherland
HOFFMAN, STEFANI
iOVIET PRESSWATCH Israel As Portrayed By Soviet Emigrants Who Return To The Motherland STEFAN I HOFFMAN The Soviet press calls them "former people"—Soviet citizens who voluntarily surrendered...
...With great difficulty I found work as a loader of medical preparations at a private factory, where we worked under the vigilant eye of supervisors, like in a concentration camp...
...I therefore deserted from the Israeli army" (Komiomotskaya Prarda, February 2, 1987...
...Some families, according to Gdansky, "were forcibly separated under pretext of military or some other necessity— parents were settled in one pan of the country, children in another and old people in a third part" {Sovrttkaya Moldavia, February 2, 1987...
...Living on a miserable stipend, [she] did not pay dues for the medical insurance 'Kupat Kalil' [sic], [She] staggered through the wards looking for acquaintances...
...Former people" who had emigrated to the United Slates also encountered difficulties...
...January 30, 1987...
...The father describes Sthonau Castle in Vienna, ihe first stop on (heir journey to Israel: "The emigrants' alienation begins with this castle...
...Despite the fact that we were nearly starving, exhausted by heavy work, they took our blood at the factory without even olfcHng us a bowl of soup afterwards"' (Provda Vkrainy, January 8. 1987...
...When these "Former people" return dissatisfied with the countries Lo which they have emigrated, their stories receive prominent coverage, especially in the local press in regions with substantia] Jewish populations, such as Moldavia, the Ukraine and Azcrbaidz-han...
...But I grew up in Baku, where Russians and Jews and Azerbaidzhanis live together and I did not understand why Arabs are my enemies...
...As if all these problems were not enough, the new immigrants find no comfort from callous friends and relatives who have arrived earlier...
...And thus every week they forced us, ?lien violently, to donate half a liter of blood...
...Why did these people leave (he USSR in ihe first place...
...Only three hour* later did she realize that she had to pay...
...The Israeli army, as is known, constantly engages in rapacious wars...
...J think that was the work of terrorists from Zionist circles in revenge for my good words about the Soviet Union and desire to return to my motherland" i tiakmsk) Rabtxhy, |anuai ) 17, 1987...
...The society is strictly divided into the 'elite' and the outcasts...
...Those who resolve to return to the USSR face an arduous path...
...While in Israel, one woman was taken to a hospital and diagnosed as in danger ofa heart attack, but no one came to help her...
...Bakiasky ftabocky, April 22, 1987...
...Soviet articles don't provide statistics about the total number of returnees...
...Those who succeed in obtaining permission to mum are properly appreciative: "We are grateful to the Soviet government for its humane altitude toward our family...
...Some new arrivals in Israel, according to these Soviet press reports, immediately suffered from racism in addition to all their other problems: "The first thing that former Soviet citizens come up against in Israel is unconcealed racism...
...Instead they speak of family units or groups of 25 to 60 people...
...The Soviet government regards citizenship as a privilege not to be rejected or restored lightly...
...ln Israel itself, housing, high prices and bureaucratic procedures all make life impossible for the new immigrants: "They brought us to the village of Migdal Hacmek near Haifa," reports the father of the Gdanslty family, "[and] settled us in a four-story building without electricity...
...The latter include people from Soviet Central Asia and the Trap sea ucasian Republic...
...Otherwise they threatened to fire you...
...Others complained of American indifference and inhumanity: "A land or cruelty, that's what America is...
...Despite such portrayals, however, Soviet authorities have been unable to thwart the efforts of hundreds of thousands of Jews to leave...
...A family member explained: "To be totally frank, we were the victims of Zionist propaganda...
...I was supposed to kill Arabs...
...iOVIET PRESSWATCH Israel As Portrayed By Soviet Emigrants Who Return To The Motherland STEFAN I HOFFMAN The Soviet press calls them "former people"—Soviet citizens who voluntarily surrendered their citizenship in order to live in the West, but later returned (o the motherland...
...And without beating around the bush, my relatives declared that they themselves could barely make ends meet and that I shouldn't count on their help" [Pravaa Ukrainy, January 8, 1987...
...J987...
...An atmosphere of suspicion reigns here as a result of informing and slander...
...At (he same time, because of political considerations, the y completely hush up the reverse process—the return of people lo the USSR" {Sovtlikaya MoUai I...
...She adds...
...Another element was the whispering of 'kind advisers' who asserted (ha( Jews live well onlv in the 'promised land' " (February 18...
...Many Soviet citizens learn about life in Israel and the United States from Soviet Jews who left for Israel and later relumed to the USSR...
...It was impossible to refuse...
...There was no water, heat or furniture...
...They make up astronomical figures of those who want to leave the USSR...
...My relatives, who Tor many years had been writing us 'sweet letters' praising the 'charms' of life in Israel told me after a Tew days that I had to be an extremely naive person not to understand that indeed, their letters were dictated to them by the Zionists...
...In Israel there are 'white' and 'black1 Jews...
...It feels no obligation to welcome back its prodigal sons...
...The Gdansky family, for example, was featured in a three-part series entitled "Mirages from a Land of Milk and Honey," in SoveUkaya Moldavia...
...We can expiate our guilt toward our motherland by work and only by work" {Sovttskaya Moldavia, February 13, 1987...
...We worked for 14 hours a day with short ten-minute breaks...
...As one Soviet paper recently put it, "The West speculates on facts of Soviet emigration...
...Wounded soldiers need blood...
...A man from Kiev was tossed from job to job in New York until he wound up in the clutches of a fellow countryman who worked him from seven in the morning until ten tn the evening in his vegetable store, but even that was not enough to make ends meet...
...Returning home Late in the evening from work, [he] would take a large bag with him and would collect bottles on the heavily littered Brooklyn streets" (Praada t'kramy, April 4, 1987...
...Once 1 even got a bullet in my side...
...Here the Shin Bet and the Jewish Agency subject their future citizens (o their first questioning, in essence an interrogation of many hour's length.1' Nega(ive impressions of Israel are reported beginning with the emigrants' arrival at the Ben-Gurion airport: "They treated us Jewish arrivals from (he USSR roughly, in an unfriendly way...
...The younger generation faces an additional woe—army service: "in Israel I was conscripted into the army...
...According to the returnees, finding and keeping a job causes problems for almost all the new Israelis...
...It wasn't an apartment, but a prison cell...
...It advertises itself as having broad human rights, but these are rights for wolfhounds...
...And officials laughed insultingly at our requests to be more polite and even declared that no one had invited us and we could go to hell" (Pravda L'kramy, January 8,1987...
...Not so much a transit point, rather a concentration camp for those who are going to 'the land or (heir ancestors...
...On the way to Israel, we became friendly with a Jewish family from Odessa and wanted to settle together with them...
...They separated us because a Jew from the Caucasus—I am from Baku—does not have the right to live together with 'while' Jews" (Amn-somobkaya Propria, February 2,1987.1...
...In limes of trouble, Israeli society proves heartless, according to the returnees' press reports...
...The floors, ceiling and walls were all of cement...
...She was lucky and found some from whom she borrowed money—at interest...
...One woman relates: "My life became a nightmare...
Vol. 12 • December 1987 • No. 9
