My Talks with Soviet Jews:
RUBINSTEIN, ALVIN Z.
A recent visitor to the Soviet Union tells of the fear he found in Russia's Jewish communities, and of the Government's anti-Semitic policies My Talks with Soviet Jews When I visited the Soviet...
...His word was accepted without question, however reluctantly...
...From brief bits of conversation, and the unmistakable meaning behind certain gestures, a different picture emerged of Soviet Jewry under Stalin, especially during the 1948-1953 period...
...Was there discrimination against the Jews in America...
...This was the only time that anyone dared to defy the edict against sending out letters...
...This discipline is a precondition of survival...
...It may be argued, with a good deal of truth, that rejection of one's Jewish heritage, and the overriding pressure to conform and assimilate, are also prevalent in the United States...
...Interestingly enough, no one outside of the synagogue, Jew or non-Jew, ever asked me this particular question...
...the system of American governmental relationships and responsibilities is not an easy concept for a foreigner to grasp...
...During one such farewell, one of the men surreptitiously slipped a small piece of paper into my hand...
...On matters affecting the synagogue's relations with the outside community, and with the state, his was the final say...
...are you a member of a delegation...
...It is the non-conformist who would admit believing in God...
...My questioners were anxious...
...Alvin Z. Rubinstein is a member of the Political Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania...
...When I left a synagogue, many people would come up, shake hands, bid me "shalom" and ask that I send a gruss (greeting) to those in America...
...What were conditions like in Israel...
...Aside from the proscriptions on Jewish teaching and culture, anti-Semitism is manifest in many other ways...
...I was aware of the character of the Soviet press before my visit...
...This lists, among other things, one's nationality, i.e...
...As a result, one family in the United States learned, after many years of silence, that a brother in Russia still lives...
...Terror was directed with particular vehemence against those who admitted having relatives in the United States or Israel...
...A few would usually seem willing to do so...
...As one congregant whispered to me, "One never knows who is listening—even in the synagogue...
...The fact that an individual may be an atheist, as many young people profess, agnostic, or even convert to another faith does not alter the matter one iota...
...For the Jew, the passport is a badge of discrimination...
...Very often, I was told, young couples will elect to adopt the least Jewish of their surnames as their family name...
...As such, they are open game for any anti-Semitism an official may care to practice—thus, when applying for a job, one must produce the passport...
...These are always couched in euphemistic critiques of "cosmopolitanism" and "bourgeois-nationalism," as well as in open attacks on Zionism and the "warmongers of Wall Street...
...Providing a balanced, accurate account proved a problem...
...Great interest was also shown in the five rabbis who had been in the Soviet Union in 1956 and visited many of these same synagogues...
...This made earning a living difficult, with the burden falling most heavily upon the aged...
...however, care was always taken to asure me that all else was quite satisfactory...
...There are never any open attacks on Jews as Jews...
...It further resulted in the virtual disappearance of Jewish cultural life, the falling away of the young, and the inculcation of a fear which continues to dominate all contacts of Russian Jews with foreigners, regardless of the visitor's position or religion...
...Unlike other Soviet citizens who no longer seem fearful of contact with foreigners, Jews still shy away from discussing their lot with outsiders...
...The essentials of this picture were substantiated by many of the Jews I met outside the synagogue...
...Were the Israelis afraid of the Arabs...
...given a competitor for the position, the Jew is openly at a disadvantage...
...Most young people, regardless of background, profess to atheism...
...Those who had indicate a willingness to send out letters were criticized and declared "fools...
...Their picture of the Negro in America was the distorted one drawn by Soviet propaganda...
...I was careful to set their fears at rest on this point...
...None of the Soviet citizens, Jews or non-Jews, I might add, had ever heard of the 1954 Supreme Court decision...
...The issue, however, was always resolved in the same way...
...But this sense of general well-being, so carefully cultivated by synagogue officials, was never supported in private talks...
...It contained his family's name and an address in America...
...Finally, I walked over to an elderly man who was also standing alone and remarked that I thought the members of the congregation were afraid to speak to me...
...Anti-Semitism in the Soviet press is interwoven with anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-imperialist Soviet propaganda...
...Thus, it soon became clear that silence meant survival, but official hostility still remained...
...But this approach ignores a fundamental difference: In America the freedom to teach religious and cultural traditions remains and represents a vital force in American cultural life...
...Georgia, Armenia, etc., Yiddish is neither understood nor spoken by members of congregations...
...Secondly, the Jew under 35 is a product of the Soviet educational system, and accordingly has had little or no formal religious instruction...
...But nothing amazed me more during my travels than a question which I was asked in every synagogue I visited: "Is it true that Eisenhower and Dulles and Harriman are Jews...
...For example, every Soviet citizen is required to carry an internal passport...
...Thus, a Georgian Jew is marked as a Jew, not as a Georgian...
...Government informants are an anticipated element in any congregation...
...On entering the synagogues, I was struck by the absence of children or young people...
...There was no overriding his decision, nor apparently any real desire to do so...
...First, he claims to be an atheist...
...This, of course, reflects the insidious way in which Soviet mass media lump Eisenhower, Dulles, Harriman, Zionism, Wall Street and the West into one catch-all for the world's ills...
...On the passport, and in the eyes of the Government, he remains a Jew...
...Singers...
...Everywhere I was asked, "Delegatsia...
...He has "Yevrei" (Jew) printed on his passport...
...A recent visitor to the Soviet Union tells of the fear he found in Russia's Jewish communities, and of the Government's anti-Semitic policies My Talks with Soviet Jews When I visited the Soviet Union last summer, I had an opportunity to speak with Jews in synagogues, in public places and in their homes...
...After such an exchange, the congregants tended to lose interest in further conversation and split into small groups, leaving me alone or in the company of the synagogue officials...
...Having no ties with the synagogue, or with the Jewish community which tends to cluster around it, his preoccupation is with assimilation...
...There was much surprise, and sometimes disappointment, when I replied that I was only a tourist who had come to the synagogue out of a sense of kinship...
...Ukrainian, Uzbek, Russian, etc...
...The first time this happened, I found myself standing alone, waiting, hoping that some would want to continue our conversation on other topics...
...Excitement is considerably heightened when the visitor is an American Jew and communication in Russian or Yiddish is possible (though outside Russia proper and the Ukraine, e.g...
...Invariably, the middle-aged and elderly people present bore the same characteristics: the beards of the orthodox, the shabbiness of the poor...
...But my questioners were serious...
...The Birobijan experiment of the 1920s and '30s, which sought to resettle the Jews in the Mongolian hinterland, was a complete failure...
...Were there many Hebrew schools and synagogues...
...The president of the synagogue, with an air of finality which bespoke his complete control, would rule that no letters were to be sent...
...They feared that derogatory comments in the foreign press about the plight of Russia's three million Jews might be attributed by Soviet authorities to conversations held between the rabbis and members of their particular congregation...
...But the Jew is regarded as a separate case...
...in a little while I would leave and return to America, but for them there was no leaving...
...ed asking questions: What was the condition of American Jewry...
...Finally, even if he accepts his Jewish heritage, he argues strongly against "burdening" his children with a Jewish education, religious or cultural: "Why make life any more difficult than it is...
...He was silent for a moment, then he looked at me with sadness in his eyes and answered that there was nothing for them to say...
...Almost simultaneously, everyone startDr...
...There was a reluctance to discuss conditions under Stalin, or even to acknowledge that they had been unduly severe for the Jews in the latter years of his rule...
...But soon there were approving nods and noticeable relaxation...
...Surprisingly, too, there was a great deal of curiosity about Negroes...
...This option is legal in the Soviet Union...
...The presence of a foreigner in a synagogue still occasions quite a stir, despite recent visits by delegations and individuals...
...Limitations on religious instruction and Jewish culture were admitted...
...Were there Yiddish newspapers...
...What, I was asked, had they said about the Jews of Russia on their return...
...They, of course, knew of the Israeli victory over Egypt and hoped that Israel would remain free...
...Was Yiddish spoken in public...
...Theaters...
...At first, I thought I had misunderstood...
...Consequently, even among the assimilated, who profess no tie of religion, culture or identification with Jewry at large, the mere presence of the Yevrei designation on the passport perpetuates an intangible sense of "Jewishness...
...Since many congregation members inquired about relatives in America, when I visited a synagogue I offered to take letters and mail them on my return home...
...Then a discussion, often quite heated, would break out...
...Inhabiting no geographic area where they are a majority or even a significant minority, unable to associate themselves with any ethnic group, the Jews remain by law individuals estranged from their environment...
...The Jew one meets outside the synagogue community is usually of different orientation and background...
...The recent renaissance of interest in the religious and cultural heritage of Judaism would be impossible in the Soviet Union...
Vol. 41 • January 1958 • No. 4
