PROSPECTS AND ALTERNATIVES

...Men of decency and good conscience have ever persisted, regardless of the odds...

...Although the possibilities of reversing this trend through external influence are obviously small, the Soviet leadership has shown itself sensitive to just such influence...

...Nor would the consideration of its possible impact on the other Soviet nationalities be decisive, since it was not so in the other case...

...nor are the Arabs likely to endanger their major source of arms because of even as sharp a difference as this might arouse with the Soviet Union...

...moreover, unlike the Jews, the majority of all the other Soviet nationalities live inside the USSR...

...any kind of larger Jewish organization, cultural or religious, would be viewed suspiciously as a security risk...

...Such a move, then, would not constitute an admission of ideological failure precisely because it is not unprecedented...

...This process, furthermore, would conflict with the current Soviet policy of decentralization, which grants at least superficial concessions to the very elements, especially the Ukrainians and White Russians, who would object most strenuously to merging with the Jews...

...If so, the prospects for Soviet Jewry are ominous indeed...

...Such a policy would mean that a million new, formerly Jewish "Ukrainians" would presumably be free to resume the leading part they once played in the Ukraine's public life...

...Thus, the only form of easement that has been allowed the Jews in the past year or so is such that it represents no permanent institutionalization: disparate Jewish concerts, a limited edition of one volume of Sholom Aleichem's works but no theater...

...The right of assimilation would not result in the disappearance of Jews as such for at least several generations, but it would mean that they could readily filter back into the very positions from which they are steadily being ejected...

...This course, then, seems no more likely a prospect than the restoration of full nationality rights...

...The limbo of isolation into which Soviet assumptions, attitudes and policies have forced the Jews is increasingly awkward for the Kremlin and increasingly bitter for the Jews...

...And this in turn could lead to both the reconstitution of minority rights for those who choose to exercise them and the opportunity of full integration for those who choose to assimilate...

...All of the foregoing, of course, is obviously too speculative to permit a guess to be hazarded as to which side of the argument on emigration is the more powerful in the Kremlin's calculations...

...The limitation inherent in this course is that it is precisely what the Soviet authorities fear most...

...The unquestionably powerful arguments brought against the likelihood of such a course are that it is unprecedented in Soviet history, that its adoption would represent an admission of ideological and political failure in domestic policy, that it would have a deleterious impact on the other national groups in the USSR, that it would have an adverse effect on Soviet relations with the Arab countries, since a large proportion of Soviet Jews who would emigrate would presumably settle in Israel There is something to be said, however, against each of these objections...

...Surely the civilized world has the moral obligation to undertake initiatives that hold even the smallest promise of success...

...It would give the Jews the full benefit in all cultural and religious matters of their present, officially recognized national status: schools, press, publishing houses, theaters, institutions of higher learning, religious freedom no less than that accorded to other religious groups, and communal associations and organizations...

...3) emigration...

...4) a combination of these three...

...Moscow's special, differential approach to the Jews has only served to induce a reaction within the Soviet Jewish community reminiscent of the crypto-Jewish marrano community produced by the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition...

...There would appear to be only four alternatives, each with its own limitations: (1) complete implementation of Jewish nationality rights...

...Fearful of the hostile, they have created hostility...

...The third alternative emigration is usually considered the least feasible from the point of view of the Soviet regime...

...For the Kremlin it is awkward simply because to perpetuate this policy of discrimination through indirection and concealment is cumbersome and inefficient, and embarrassing vis-a-vis the world Communist movement, the Afro-Asian world and the West...

...finally, the Kremlin has rarely allowed such purely external considerations to determine or prevent a policy decision considered necessary for internal reasons...

...The opposite alternative the opportunity for full assimilation would mean free choice of nationality for all individual Jews...

...But such a policy would run head on against the basic assumption underlying present Soviet attitudes to the Jews...

...no publishing house, no press, no nationwide communal organization...

...Permission for a substantial number of Soviet Jews to emigrate could result in an easing of the profound Soviet suspicion toward the Jews who remain...

...The implementation of Jewish nationality rights would constitute no divergence from Soviet ideological considerations or from the prevailing practice in regard to all other nationalities...

...There is little doubt that such a policy would meet strenuous objection in the Ukraine...

...There remains a fourth alternative course which could combine elements of the other three...

...With a larger number of Soviet Jews outside rather than in the USSR, the remainder could conceivably be relieved of their security risk status...

...This, and the concomitant elimination of discrimination, could most efficiently and quickly be effected by the abolition of Paragraph 5 of the identity card, as it pertains to Jews...

...They are prepared to regard Jews as harmless only if they live as a fragmented group...

...What alternative courses of action are realistically open to the Soviet rulers to escape the vicious circle of their own making...

...The prospect must naturally be faced that the Soviet Government will persist in its present policy, however embarrassing, irrational and self-defeating it may be...

...The very raison d'etre of this policy has been to remove Jews from all security-sensitive positions in public life...

...What, then, are the prospects for Soviet Jewry...

...Emigration is not wholly unprecedented in Soviet and East European Communist experience, as witness the "repatriation" of the Hellenic minority to Greece from the Ukraine's Black Sea coast at the end of World War II, the "repatriation" in the reverse direction of large numbers of Armenians from the Middle East to the Soviet Armenian Republic during the war (in both cases, these minorities had had no direct relation with their ancient motherlands for many centuries), or Rumania's "repatriation" of the Volksdeutsche from Transylvania to West Germany, although their ancestors originally came from the Austria of Hapsburg days...

...For the time being, therefore, this does not appear to be the direction in which Soviet policy is likely to move...

...It is awkward, above all, because it has failed as a solution to the problem which it has itself created...

...Finally, the adverse effect on Soviet-Arab relations could be exaggerated: The Arab countries, as it happens, are already a major source of Jewish immigration into Israel...

...2) unimpaired opportunities for full assimilation and elimination of discrimination...