Russian Emigrants and Jewish Policy
RUSSIAN EMIGRANTS AND JEWISH POLICY In January, moment presented an article by Leonard Fein on the problem of the so-called noshrim, Soviet Jews who exit Russia with Israeli visas and who then...
...Unfortunately, certain extremist elements in the American Jewish community apparently decided that international diplomacy was insufficient, and they encouraged and developed techniques of harassing and insulting the Soviet government and its representatives in the West...
...The Israelis are not, after all, more closely related to the Russians than we are, and yet their own resources, so much scarcer than ours, have had to be diverted to provide jobs, schools, and all the rest...
...But once they go to Israel, and receive Israeli passports, they are no longer officially Soviet refugees...
...But whereas in earlier cases it has been easy for the Israeli establishment to brush them off by saying that any criticism is an intervention in internal affairs, things are different this time...
...Israel believes that the potential effects of an Entebbe are worth it...
...makes a fine case for continuing to guarantee the freedom of choice of former Soviet Jews...
...and you know that the pounds, hands, legs, eyes, husbands, and fathers of many Israelis have also been given to the Jews...
...The unexpectedly strong reaction from American Jewry may mark a turning-point in Israel-Diaspora relations, and put to question, for the first time, the Israeli notion that other Jewish communities exist only in order to aid Israel and, now that the state has been established, are obliged to dissolve themselves for Israel's benefit...
...One of the private letters spoke mysteriously of "experts" on whom we must rely to guide us through the stratosphere of international high politics...
...Israel has certain assumptions as to how Jews should be helped...
...But I do understand the sense of symbolism, history, and destiny which characterizes a Jewish national state and which is uncharacteristic of a voluntary Diaspora Jewish community...
...Indeed, it is an unfortunate inequity of Jewish life that the Israelis have paid far more to take care of our Russian kinsfolk than we...
...But the problem is that they wouldn't be exactly free to leav...
...My own conversations with Jews in a number of cities suggests strongly that on this particular issue there is solid support for traditional philanthropic effort, and growing satisfaction with the results of our help to the Russian Jews who have joined us here...
...And the others would be free to leave whenever they wished...
...Our dollars and our hands are for Jews...
...And I'm afraid that the latter was actually the case...
...I am not insensitive to such reasons, needs, requirements, but I think the health of the community is enhanced by adopting openness and involvement as the general norm...
...But the question must be asked: did their actions help or hinder the cause of Soviet Jewry...
...but first for the "saints...
...Moreover, the Gordon hypothesis might easily be recast to read as follows: The USSR has advised the Israelis that their intervention on behalf of Soviet Jewry will cause the USSR to pursue the destruction of Israel...
...We have tended to neglect pressing domestic projects or to postpone them, so that we may help the Israelis somewhat more— even if it is not enough...
...Do the Americans feel guilty at their decision...
...As I tried to say the first time around, it is possible that there are reasons for a change in Jewish policy towards helping the noshrim...
...Such rhetoric is misleading, mischievous, and mistaken...
...But, as Barry Chazan observes, their intentions have been honorable, and to leap from disappointment regarding tactics to accusations regarding strategy is dangerous and unwarranted...
...Barry Chazan Hebrew University, Jerusalem To the Editor: When the debating, committee gathering, gavel pounding and breast beating are put aside one predominant fact stands out atop the spate of ideas and suggestions pertaining to the Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union—it is impossible to predict the thought patterns regarding Jews residing in the Soviet Union...
...Herewith, some reactions, with a response by the author...
...In short, it would be much harder (for many) to choose America over Israel...
...I am inclined to think that the principal donors in my own community would have considerable reservation about the proposed use of Feder-ation-UJA funds...
...And that's why the real point of my article does not have to do with the issue of nosh-rim...
...The former live in Boston as well as Tel Aviv, and the latter live in Herzliya as well as Des Moines...
...I would surely not want to be faced with such a burdensome decision myself, but if I were, I rather suspect that I would do what Gordon, who makes of the hypothetical an actual, believes the Israelis have done—that is, choose Israel's interests...
...It has to do with the way in which Jewish policy gets made...
...In any particular instance, one can always hide behind "reasons of state," the need for secrecy and discretion, the special circumstances that require whispers in back rooms...
...In the early 1970s, when Soviet Jewry was a higher item on the agenda of American and Canadian Jews, there were significant efforts made to have the American government put pressure on the Soviet Union regarding its policy toward the Jews of that country...
...such an agreement seems plausible...
...If so, a striking imbalance between our devotion to Israel and our own needs will have begun to be rectified...
...It pushes these assumptions in various forums in different ways...
...Every Russian Jewish body that resides in the United States has taken one more citizen away—from Israel...
...Whatever the feelings may have been vis-a-vis who helps Russian Jews more, Israel or American or British Jewry, there was no question in the minds and hearts of Russian Jews that the Jewish resistance and resurgence there owes its being and soul to the fact of Israel's existence and to some decisive and symbolic actions of Israel...
...The latter refers to the last words of the article: "It is American Jewish subsidies that nourish those who escape...
...Now we are asked to set aside funds which ordinary folk give out of commitment to support the State of Israel, to make use of those funds for purposes essentially outside the purview of Jewish communal giving...
...The Soviet Union knows these people are most apt to drop out at Vienna...
...You know that it is not just subsidies that save people...
...Barry Chazan and Jacob Neusner take issue with a different part of my argument...
...They also know this is a "problem" for world Jewry and may lead to a change in policy of just the groups you discussed in your article...
...In my view that is not fair and not wholly honest...
...There would be hell to pay, and there would be very grave problems for American Jewish sensibilities...
...I think that some are mistaken, others foolhardy, and others immoral...
...Chazan is angry with me because he thinks I said that American Jews care more for the Russians than the Israelis do...
...At times, in my view, their labors have been misdirected, and their tactics unproductive...
...The forces of the former are too few for them to misrepresent the true enemy...
...If the Committee of Eight had reached the opposite decision, then American Jewry would have been imposing its decision on Israel...
...And, indeed, American Jewish institutions have certainly extended themselves greatly to help Soviet Jewish emigrants adjust not only to American economic and political life, but to ways in which they can continue their Jewish involvement in America...
...It begins with his eloquent statement, "Our dollars and our hands are for Jews—saints and sinners, olim and noshrim alike...
...If Israel is seen as the exclusive spokesman for Jewish interests worldwide, and if we always defer to Israel's judgments, all of us—Jews in Israel and outside—are more vulnerable to specific pressures than we need to be...
...I don't agree with all these judgments...
...Robert Gordon's swipe at the Israelis, however, seems to me entirely unjustified...
...Let us, therefore, hope that the average Israeli's discomfort over the fact that his country's visas are being used to help dropouts will perhaps be balanced by the good feelings he has in knowing that these visas make the critical difference in aiding desperate Jews to escape from the prison of the Soviet Union...
...Sometimes it wins, sometimes it loses...
...But supposing that it were, would Gordon then so cavalierly accuse the Israelis of dishonorable abandonment of Soviet Jews...
...I remain convinced that the issue is one of uncommon significance, and the diverse replies, whether critical or supportive, have been constructive...
...I raise the hypothetical because it seem to me to illustrate the central problem we have here, namely, that the interests of the State of Israel may, from time to time, and for good and sufficient reason, conflict with the interests of the Jewish people...
...The principal task is to build and sustain the Jewish state, and, in my view, the human aspirations of individuals to make a good life for themselves elsewhere, while understandable, do not enjoy equivalent urgency...
...Thus, keep sending potential dropouts, keep the international pot boiling, wait for a move by world Jewry and then Russia is in the position of reacting to events, instead of the or-chestrator of the entire proceedings...
...Our dollars are not inexhaustible, but, for all the success of our fundraising, we have not yet come close to exhausting our fundraising capability...
...Now we are faced with a claim which, in my judgment, cannot be allowed to rise to the top of the communal agendum, not because it is not valid, but because it is a luxury...
...and Israel have teamed up together, I agree with you...
...I hasten to point out that I do not believe such a statement has ever been made...
...P. Karnopovich Toronto, Ontario, Canada To the Editor: Leonard Fein presents us with a reasonable and compelling argument as to why aid to noshrim must continue and must be supported by American Jewry...
...In addition to the "normal" letters my article provoked, I received three private communications, which cannot be here reproduced...
...Beersheva, Israel To the Editor: I agree with the position that we should help Russian Jews get out of the Soviet Union, whatever way possible, wherever they may want to go...
...Paul S. Appelbaum, M.D...
...Does one still need to argue that it is possible to live significantly as a Jew in America's great cities...
...Assuredly not...
...It is appropriate for Israel to use the term, on the principle that Israel is the proper place for all Jews to settle, particularly those who have sought visas from the Israeli government____But the real issue is the American Jewish leaders' acceptance of the criticism implied in the term dropout, used for those who—like these very American Jews—have chosen not to serve in Israel...
...Perhaps such a view can be inferred from my article...
...Who are these experts...
...The issue is not whether Israel or the American Jewish community cares more for Jews, but what is in the best interest of the Jews...
...Israel and the Committee of Eight are not experimenting with Jewish freedom...
...Or shall Jewish life be a conspiracy of the mysterious few— even a "good" conspiracy...
...What I find particularly problematic in the article is the attempt to deal with the Russian Jewry issue exclusively within the context of the American Jewry versus Israeli polemic...
...Neusner makes the important point that we live in a world of scarce resources, and that, rhetoric aside, we must establish priorities for the expenditure of Jewish public money...
...True...
...To change the present policy relating to immigration is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with the lives of our brethren who seek to live free, independent lives whether in Israel, the United States or anywhere else in the world...
...What is interesting to this American, from an Israeli vantage point, is the manner in which the controversy has been presented to the Israeli public...
...The true dialectic is between the too-small number of Jews in the world who care about the Jewish people, and the majority who care little or not at all...
...But those who propose such a change have not provided the rest of us with the reasons, and it is the high-handed process, the disregard for the existence of a constituency of concerned Jews, that is the major issue here...
...This point was writ large to me on the streets of Moscow two years ago...
...Were they to spend half a year in Israel, a greater percentage probably would stay...
...Now is the time to stand firm, or as Fein so aptly states, "The time has come, at last, not to rock the boat...
...Let them fester in Rome, languish in the slums of Providence or Boston...
...All three were from long-time friends, each now occupying high position in Jewish life, each making roughly the same point: if you knew what we knew, you'd not have taken the position you did...
...The human aspirations of individuals to make a good life for themselves elsewhere [than Israel] do not enjoy equivalent urgency...
...RUSSIAN EMIGRANTS AND JEWISH POLICY In January, moment presented an article by Leonard Fein on the problem of the so-called noshrim, Soviet Jews who exit Russia with Israeli visas and who then decide to settle in some other country...
...Secrecy begets suspicion, suspicion begets alienation, and no one—not that I know of—has either the credentials or the mandate to manage our business without seeking our informed consent...
...That's an intimidating message to anyone who takes Jewish responsibility seriously, and the message was clearly intended to intimidate...
...She can then stop all emigration...
...The last time that approach was used on me—and on the rest of us—was when Walt Rostow and Lyndon Johnson were saying that about the Vietnam War...
...However, there are several points in the article with which I do not agree, and one which is even offensive...
...He believes that the assertion of such priorities, especially since most of the money is raised in the name of Israel, would (and should) give preference to Israel's development...
...Israel's existence is a permanent monument and vehicle for Jewish freedom...
...but that's a different point from the claim that American Jewry is for Jews and Israel is not...
...But he refrains from questioning why the Israeli Foreign Office has opted to drop aid to noshrim...
...If our concern is for the Jewishness of the Soviet Jews, we need but steer them to cities which abound in Jewish options and show them how to participate...
...Joshua Rubenstein Cambridge, Massachusetts To the Editor: In an otherwise excellent analysis of the dropouts issue facing the American Jewish community, Leonard Fein makes a serious error in giving (albeit grudgingly) credit to the Jewish Defense League and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry...
...This, sad to say, enabled the Soviets to obscure the issue and to complain roundly about the treatment of their foreign officials...
...Rabbi Richard N. Levy L. A. Hillel Council, Los Angeles, California To the Editor: Unfortunately, one of the suggestions for responding to the increasing percentage of Soviet Jewish emigrants who do choose America over Israel is to make them all go to Israel directly rather than to Rome...
...it is American Jewish sensibilities that must be respected...
...In the era of CIA and other governmental excesses, at a time when we have learned that the paranoid fantasies of the crazies are all too often entirely accurate, it is understandable that some people will conclude that Israel and the USSR have a secret agreement...
...On its face, the idea seems reasonable...
...What are their credentials...
...The Israelis have—on occasion at great risk—labored mightily on behalf of Soviet Jewry...
...Virtually all the emigrants are curious about Israel, even if they don't intend to live there...
...Or do they feel that it is really not possible to live a Jewish life in the United States and hence believe it is morally wrong for Soviet Jews who are now denied the possibility of living Jewishly to go to another country wherein their Jewish life is also somehow in jeopardy...
...Indeed, such a forum would help substantially to relieve the burden the Israelis are now forced to carry, for Israel could then honestly respond to such pressures by asserting its lack of ability to control world Jewish opinion, and could be confident that its own security needs would not lead to the abandonment of Jews elsewhere...
...Leonard Shroeter in The Last Exodus documents numerous incidents of Israeli insensitivity to Russian Jewish requests for support— The [possibility exists] that there is a series of explicit or implicit agreements between the Israeli and the Soviet governments [through which] Israel has agreed to limit its support of the disruptive Zionist movement in the Soviet Union in return for certain Soviet promises with respect to Soviet activities in the Middle East—Lack of Israeli response to the Zionist movement in the USSR is unfortunately fairly well documented and...
...But not everything that is possible is likely, and both sanity and decency require that the distinction between the two be preserved...
...We are scarcely able to bear our share of the heavy burdens of sustaining the Jewish state...
...And that is precisely why I believe the Jewish People requires some forum (such as the World Jewish Congress) where decisions can be reached independent of pressures on Israel...
...Your rhetoric seduces me into a similar rhetoric, and both of us into a holier-than-thou attitude...
...I am convinced that such a conflict would cause incredible anguish to the Israelis, and I am not certain how they would go about reaching decisions under such pressure...
...To the Editor: Leonard Fein's very interesting article is certainly not the first to express the dissonance that exists between certain Diaspora circles and the Jewish-Zionist establishment (including above all, of course, the State of Israel...
...It is not just American Jewish subsidies that nourish those who escape, nor is it only American Jewish sensibilities that must be respected, nor are American Jews the only ones who provide dollars and hands for Jews...
...The folly of policy change is all the more clear if we stop to consider that we now may very well be facing a classic Catch 22 situation with Russia and our Jewish people...
...For world Jewry to decide to play Russia's game is the height of ridiculous thought...
...Everything else gets a free ride...
...Howard A. Simon Rabbi, Beth Israel Congregation Margate, New Jersey To the Editor: One problem with the issue of the destination of Soviet Jewish emigrants is the American Jewish acceptance of the term noshrim, dropouts...
...To achieve her end she allows to emigrate, as recent statistics bear out, primarily Jews living in large cities such as Kiev, Leningrad, Moscow and Odessa...
...I commend the zeal of the JDL and the SSSJ, and I'm sure their motives were pure...
...Moreover, I simply do not agree that the "major donors" to whom Neusner refers are as uninterested in supporting Jewish immigrants to this country as Neusner supposes them to be...
...The issue is not American dollars and hands versus Israeli taxes and miluim (although that's the way Israel often packages it, and American Jews have currently picked up the rhetoric...
...Every American dollar that goes to support the dropouts, they say, is being taken away from its rightful destination—Israel...
...Our dollars and our hands are for Jews—saints and sinners...
...Government and Zionist leaders here have told their countrymen that the real issue is diversion of Jewish resources from the Jewish state...
...It follows that we have to make choices, and one choice of necessity eliminates some other...
...The Soviet Union wants to find a way to stop the emigration of Jews and still not appear "the bad guy" in the world's eye...
...I think that Israel assumes that not negotiating for hostages is a symbolic (and real) act of Jewish strength, even if it means that Jewish lives are lost...
...Thus, it is hitting below the belt to imply that American Jewry has the interests of Jews and Jewish life as its concern ("Our dollars and hands are for Jews— saints and sinners, olim and noshrim alike"), and Israel does not...
...If you are saying that the rules of the game are not always good, or that some strange bedfellows in the U.S...
...Furthermore, to imply by the term dropouts that a choice to come to America means forsaking Jewish or Zionist devotion for a materialistic one unnecessarily points a finger at our own motives for remaining in the United States...
...We have to establish priorities so that we can accomplish some few things well, rather than nothing very much at all...
...Dov Levin, Jerusalem To the Editor: Leonard Fein's beautifully perceptive and honest statement on the noshrim leaves room for one further point...
...Jacob Neusner, Brown University To the Editor: "Let My People Go—Where...
...Then what...
...While I do think, as I have said, that there may be circumstances under which Israel, for good and sufficient reason, may be constrained from certain actions in the international sphere, I am also deeply aware of how much the Israelis have extended themselves on behalf of the Russian Jews, both those still in the USSR and, more to the point, those many who have come to live in Israel...
...This time we are confronted with what is at least formally an external problem, and it's extremely difficult to argue that the problem of dropouts is more essential to Israel than the problem of emigrants from Israel, Israel's own dropouts...
...If they wish to come to America, they can do so only under the U.S...
...Today when they arrive in Rome and apply for entry to America, they receive their permission under terms of the parole program...
...Federations raise money because people respond to the claim of the State of Israel...
...But our dollars are not inexhaustible...
...It gave them an excuse to ignore the real issues, and in point of fact they were let off the hook by the harass-ments issue...
...To claim that Israel is less concerned for Jews than the Student Struggle is naive and unfair...
...for all our generosity, we do not provide our fair share...
...Sometimes, Israel errs in judgment, but not in purpose...
...After all, all of us benefit from the redemption of prisoners...
...Israel assumes that Jewish responsibility means both helping Jews and enunciating and performing certain acts and stances which have symbolic effects on Jews...
...Thus, the dispute over the noshrim is being seen here as one more skirmish in the long struggle to co-opt all Jewish lives and resources in support of the State of Israel...
...a good deal of evidence points to the fact that Israel has not been responsive to the goals of Russian Zionists...
...to make Ashkelon, say, the relocation center in place of a European city...
...Israel may be wrong in many of its judgments as to what is good for Jewish survival, but Jewish survival is the cross she bears (to the point of annoyance and probably excess...
...At the very least the major donors should have a say in the diversion of funds generated by UJA educational efforts and motivated by the long-term responsibility accepted by our communities for the State of Israel...
...I think that the Israeli position should at least be given a fair hearing...
...I have discussed this view with "Refuseniks" in Moscow as well as with activists in the United States and it is almost universally rejected, but to me the logic seems compelling and the facts fall into place most easily under this assumption____ Robert G. Gordon Sudbury, Massachusetts Leonard Fein replies: I am grateful to those who took the time to reply to my article...
...quota system for immigration...
Vol. 2 • April 1977 • No. 6
