Soviet Jewish Emigration: The Next Stage

...The rate of emigration then continued to increase...

...Entering as a refugee is not the only option available to prospective immigrants from the Soviet Union...

...Entering as a refugee also means that in due course, these people will be eligible for citizenship...

...in December 1988, approvals exceeded 3,000...

...The reason why a much higher proportion of Jews want to leave the Soviet Union than Russians or Lithuanians or Kazakhs is that even though the ancestors of the Jews arrived there centuries ago, Soviet Jews have not been and still arc not accepted on a basis of equality...

...If so, a whole new set of problems may be facing the Jewish community...

...Moreover, by the end of 1988 the great bulk of Jewish refuseniks had been issued exit permits and had left the country...

...Rejections on security grounds are often utterly unreasonable, based either on the applicant's having an enemy in the bureaucracy who is venting his or her spleen or on irrational views as to what constitutes secret information...

...Left to right Daniel, Tatyana, Tamar, Vladimir (Ze'ev) and Shmuel Dashevsky...

...Will Gorbachev's reforms—perestroika and glasnost—cause Soviet Jews to rethink their inclination to leave their native country...

...State Department was informed that the first-degree relative requirement would not be applied to persons seeking to emigrate to Israel—the supposed destination of virtually all Soviet Jewish emigrants...

...Congress may agree to a temporary increase of this figure, but in light of budgetary constraints, it may not allow a significant increase on a sustained basis...

...It is not truly their home...

...It is not my intention in this article to recommend a course of action to the administration or Congress...

...In 1987, the Soviets also gradually relaxed the requirement that the application for emigration be accompanied by an invitation from a first-degree relative (a parent, child, sibling or in-law...

...For the current fiscal year, the administration requested and Congress agreed to the entry of 90,000 refugees from all over the world—at a cost of more than half a billion dollars...

...A prominent astrophysicist one of only three Soviet scientists elected a member of the American Astronomical Society, Dashevsky was forced to give up his position as researcher at the Institute for Terrestrial Magnetism as soon as he applied for a visa...

...In these instances the decision as to how to change their status in the United States is simply deferred...

...Today, nearly a year since Schifter's letter, there is no change either in the law or in the Dashevsky family's status as refuseniks...

...Gorbachev and the reformers would probably prefer that their country break with its anti-Semitic past, but they have what they consider more important issues on their agenda...

...Especially important, the applicants were not harassed or penalized by the authorities while they went through the application process...

...But the difficulties created by a poorly functioning economic system affect people of alt ethnic backgrounds...

...An observant Jew, he taught himself Hebrew, and organized a popular weekly study session conducted by a rabbi in Jerusalem over a telephone hookup...

...the relatively few denials are based either on the ground that the applicant possesses security-sensitive information or, if the applicant's parents are to remain in the Soviet Union, that one or both parents refuse to grant consent...

...Having more than doubled from 1987 to 1988, the Jewish emigration figure may double again in 1989.* The emigration totals might rise even faster if it were not for the fact that Soviet government staffs that process applications have not been increased and their handling Less than 10 percent of the applicants are now being turned down...

...This is what motivates them to leave despite the economic uncertainties that await them in a country whose language they do not speak and whose culture they do not know...

...He still waits to be reunited with the rest of his family in Israel...

...in 1987, it rose significantly to about 8,000 for the year...

...What this meant was that a Soviet Jew's application for permission to emigrate to Israel would be accepted as long as he or she furnished an invitation from some person— any person—in Israel...

...I am merely suggesting that in the near future the numbers of Soviet emigrants seeking to enter the United States may significantly exceed the numbers we are prepared to take as refugees...

...Three months later the visa was denied on the grounds of knowledge of state secrets, although he never had access to classified information...

...As refuseniks roll out of the Russian gates toward the freedom they have sought for decades, the Dashevskys are among those Soviet Jews who are still denied exit Vladimir Dashevsky's daughter from a previous marriage and his five grandchildren live in Israel and are actively fighting to get the Dashevskys out Vladimir Dashevsky requested arrexit visa to go to Israel in 1977...

...These cases, though limited, still present problems and create refuseniks...

...If 50,000 or more Soviet Jews emigrate each year for the next year or so, will the United States permit all who want—around 90 percent—to come to the United States to live...

...Jews to rethink their inclination to leave their native country...

...In the month of March 1989 alone, 4,240 Jews left the USSR...

...When it gets down to spreading limited financial resources, what weight should be given to the availability of Israel as a haven for Soviet Jews...

...The truly wrenching issue that now faces many American Jews is how to respond to the preference of many Soviet Jews to enter the United States...

...A new agenda has thus been created...

...The administration's allocation to emigrants from the Soviet Union was 25.000 out of the 90,000...

...they find it difficult to understand the circumstances under which Soviet Jews live...

...Many American Jews are now far removed from the experiences of second-class citizenship once foisted on Jews...

...What motivates these Jewish emigrants...

...During 1988 it became increasingly clear that most first-time applications for exit permits filed by Jews would be granted...

...In this context, interested Jewish groups are likely to take another look at the availability of Israel as a possible destination for Soviet Jews...

...To qualify in the United States as a refugee an applicant must demonstrate a "well-founded fear of persecution" in his or her homeland on racial, religious or political grounds...

...Even if the figure reaches 500.000, this would be only one out of every four Soviet Jews...

...It subsequently turned out that other beneficiaries of this waiver were ethnic Germans seeking to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany and Armenians seeking to emigrate to the United States...

...Where will these people go...

...We have been told it will be modified, but to date there has been no change...

...Referring to this new reason for refusal, Richard Schifter, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, wrote to the Israel-based Committee to Free Dashevsky that "the so-called 'poor relatives' regulation is one of the absurdities of Soviet emigration law...

...in the second half of 1988,11,000Jews emigrated, for a total of 19,000 for the entire year...

...However, there arc limits to the number of refugees the United States is willing to admit...

...Finally, in February 1988, the U.S...

...From an average of less than 100 per month between 1983 and 1986, and 800 per month in 1987, the number of approvals rose in 1988 to 1,000 a month, then 2,000 a month...

...Most of these Jews have been admitted as refugees...

...it stayed at about that level through 1986...

...About 5 million persons fled from Afghanistan alone...

...Above left the Dashevsky family of Moscow...

...It is by no means an exaggerated figure...

...Are they refugees, having experienced discrimination and persecution, or are they really economic migrants...

...Those who have close relatives here or have special skills can qualify under our regular immigration laws...

...Those who enter as other than refugees will not be supported by the United States government...

...How will they be supported...

...But when the issue gets down to spreading limited Financial resources as widely and effectively as possible, careful calculations may outweigh purely emotional responses...

...It has always been understood that we could not admit all refugees from everywhere in the world...

...Given the simple fact of a centuries-old pattern of discrimination, a pattern that was not broken by the Bolshevik Revolution, as many had hoped, is it any surprise that hundreds of thousands of Jews want to leave the Soviet Union today...

...If the doors out of the Soviet Union remain open, we will need to ask how the available public and private resources can best be used to help the emigrants adjust to their new lives in the places of their destination, how emigrants can be more effectively assisted, and what weight should be given to the availability of Israel as a haven for Soviet Jews...

...But the increase in overt anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union is likely to cause a great many of them to opt for emigration...

...In recent months, those applicants who do not qualify as ordinary immigrants or as refugees have been "paroled" into the United States, which has meant simply that they can enter the United States without any status entitling them to stay here permanently...

...They may prefer to continue to accept known hardships borne by them and their ancestors over the centuries "than fly to others [they] know not of...

...Will Gorbachev's reforms cause these Soviet * The Doclois' plol was a 1953 episode in which a group oi'doctois, mostly Jews, weie falseh accused of murdering two Soviet leaders...

...If the Jewish community is called upon to increase its financial support significantly, it may wonder whether the per capita cost might not be lower in Israel, so that its limited funds could provide assistance for larger numbers there than in the United States...

...In a country with a long history of anti-Semitic discrimination, Soviet Jews still live in the shadow of pogroms, blood libels, and in more recent years, the campaign against the Jews as "cosmopolitans," the murders and arrests of Yiddish cultural figures, the "Doctors' Plot,"* discrimination in higher education and in employment and the propaganda campaign against "the Zionists...

...It is similarly unreasonable that adults, many of them heads of families, are not allowed to emigrate if their parents, from whom they may be completely alienated, fail to grant their consent...

...The result was that the number of applications for exit permits from Soviet Jews climbed steadily throughout 1988 and so did approvals...

...Will those who now want to emigrate decide to remain in the Soviet Union if they are denied the opportunity of coming to the United States...

...Since the Soviet Jewish emigration wave started in the 1970s, those who wished to do so have been able to enter the United States...

...Less than 10 percent of the applicants are now being turned down...

...Getting decision makers in institutions of higher education to change their admission policies, personnel officers to change hiring and promotion policies and the general public to change its attitude toward Jews will be a difficult and prolonged process...

...8,000 Jewish emigrants left the Soviet Union in the first half of the year alone...

...In short, these JSoviet Jews will necessarily be dependent from the start on whatever support they obtain from the Jewish community...

...This means that they are entitled to financial assistance to enable them to enter the country and to adjust here...

...Their reasons for preferring the United States over Israel are clear: Economic opportunities are better, the standard of living is higher, there is less likelihood of warfare, and, for young men, no compulsory military service...

...American Jews find it difficult to argue that Soviet Jews should not enjoy the same opportunity they themselves or their forebears enjoyed...

...Some prospective emigrants will indeed reconsider and decide to stay...

...No doubt the Soviet Union's economic misery, especially when compared with the opportunities in the West, plays a role in the decision of many Jewish emigrants...

...The struggle to persuade the Soviet Union to reopen its doors to Soviet Jews has been to a large extent successful...

...I think it unlikely, for the simple reason that anti-Semitism is likely to persist in the Soviet Union...

...The number of permits rose consistently...

...During the first half of 1988, the rate doubled from the 1987 rate...

...of the applications is exceedingly slow...

...For planning purposes, the world Jewish community should be prepared for no less...

...While these three categories—refugee, ordinary immigrant, and "parole" entrant— have been adequate to permit the entry of virtually all Soviet Jewish emigrants who wanted to come here, this may not be so in the future...

...Later the "state secret" reason was dropped and the family received refusals because Tatyana's parents would not consent to their daughter leaving the Soviet Union...

...Their transportation and initial living expenses have been paid by the United States government...

...The plain fact is that the great majority of Soviet Jews who leave have no deep religious identification, nor are they Zionists...

...Nevertheless, the fact that the Soviets have relaxed so many restrictions on Jewish emigration suggests that the emigration trend is likely to continue...

...Beginning in 1983, the rate of Soviet Jewish emigration dropped to an average of less than 100 per month...

...They identify as Jews because the society in which the)' live has so identified them and has discriminated against them on that ground...