Soviet Jews in the Promised Land

...Both in terms of values and of bread and butter, the Russian newcomers' attitudes toward employment and the quality of their performance is a crucial aspect of the acculturation process...

...Their questions and comments indicate that they miss the several material advantages of being a Soviet citizen—particularly if they happen to have been members of the managerial, professional or intellectual classes...

...And, naturally, the right to immigrant housing is a one-time prerogative...

...Not that the problem of relations between the new immigrants and the old is as serious as Black Panther spokesmen would have it...

...Yet according to all reports, the volume of applications is again reaching avalanche proportions...

...If he was finally lucky enough to obtain a visa, within the short period of 48 hours he moved from a totalitarian, Communist, anti-Semitic country to a democratic, essentially capitalistic, Jewish State...

...In the USSR, where work and the worker form the basis of an ideological and ethical superstructure, a minimal effort is apparently considered a fair return for wages received...

...They arrive with a marked aversion for the methods and principles of the Soviet system...

...At that time, moreover, Israel's best seemed quite a luxury to those leaving impoverished Moslem lands...

...There is a latent though widespread fear that should this balance be drastically altered, Israel would be unable to maintain an adequate level of social services and technological advancement...

...About half of the Soviet Jews arriving these days belonged to one of these three classes...

...in Israel, private teachers must be paid privately...

...The answer, as unconvincing as it probably sounds to those who are trapped in cramped quarters, is simply this: The immigrants of 1954-55 arrived by tens of thousands every month to a new nation straining under the burden of giving each the best it could afford...

...But paradoxical or not, the fact is that these immigrants are finding it hard to make the transition from a rigid, privilege-stratified society to a fluid, classless one...

...Or: "As soon as I finished the school for laboratory technicians in Russia, I was employed in a big food factory...

...When Israel came into existence in 1948, virtually 90 per cent of its Jewish population was European- and American-born or of Western parentage...

...For example, while anybody can get a ticket for a hit musical in Tel Aviv—without "rights" or "connections"—he must be very patient, and it will cost him far more than it would in a top Moscow theater...

...At the airport, the official welcome confirmed that he was indeed a hero of contemporary Jewish history...

...The notion that for bad performance one can be fired?theoretical as it is here these days, with demand for labor exceeding supply—is shocking to a good many of the immigrants...

...The trials merely strengthened the desire of more and more Jews to get out...

...Russian Jews, like other Russian citizens, view government bureaucracy as a symbol of the dehumani-zation of everyday life under totalitarian rule...

...The social worker to whom this complaint was voiced quoted it as an example of how difficult it is to know what would make the Russian immigrants happy, and how difficult it is for them to accept Israel's concepts and standards...

...Doing more, showing initiative, working harder to improve a product or service?these merit extra rewards: bonuses, special holidays, tickets to the ballet, and the like...

...One reason for this is that in the case of several professions the Soviet government will allow only second- and third-class workers to emigrate...

...Interestingly, if fewer Jews than the average leave one month, more are allowed out the next—indicating an official annual quota...

...The current controversy, however, has compounded the immense confusion—bordering on culture shock —that a Soviet Jew experiences upon coming here...

...Why then, he finds himself wondering, would any Israeli resent his being given a new apartment and good job...

...And why all the red tape in the Promised Land...

...Thus a talented Russian worker may achieve great practical proficiency in his field and be appallingly ignorant of its theoretical aspects...

...Here is a typical complaint: "I have been a tailor all my life and was never short of work...

...OBVIOUSLY, a comparison between the USSR and Israel does not always work to Israel's advantage...

...Finally, the government will not repeat the mistake of settling Russian immigrants in modern neighborhoods adjacent to overcrowded, dilapidated immigrant housing projects...

...This dependency on the state is emotional as well as practical: "Yes, they gave me an apartment, and the Jewish Agency found a job for me...

...Recognizing that its attempt at intimidation has backfired, Moscow apparently is reverting to its previous pattern of granting a limited number of visas as an "escape valve" for Jewish pressure...

...Still, having been born and educated in the USSR, their ideas (and to no small extent their ideals), values and assumptions have been shaped by that society...

...Is it, they ask, because European, or Ash-kenazic, Jews always receive better treatment at the hands of the government than do Sephardim...

...No Israeli leader will admit it, but this is one of the reasons why the government is so anxious to welcome newcomers from the Soviet Union...

...In addition, crash programs have been initiated for slum clearance and better housing for the poor...

...If a Russian child is musically gifted, he can get free lessons...

...Although reluctant to cite a specific figure, most veteran Israelis consider this a desirable balance between the country's need for a larger labor force and its ability to assimilate the poor and less educated...

...They somehow assumed that with emigration to Israel, the realization of all their dreams, red tape would no longer exist...

...Some of the Russians, notably the young who have had higher academic education, are experts in their fields, but most are mediocre...

...Many Soviet immigrants perceive more serious differences between Israel and the Soviet Union, though, and how they will accommodate their perceptions to a democratic society remains to be seen...

...Indeed, herein lies the central problem for Russian newcomers trying to adjust to Israeli life...

...The Soviet government always sent me some clients...

...used in 1954, it cannot be reused in 1971, when conditions are better and both the government and the Jewish Agency, whose activities include assisting new arrivals, appear more openhanded with their assistance...

...UNLESS Kremlin policy reverses itself again in the near future, hundreds of Soviet Jews will continue to arrive here regularly, contributing to Israel's "ethnic mix...

...Eager to keep the present ratio, Israel is fostering emigration from the U.S...

...The last is an extremely sensitive point for those who are no longer Soviets but still not Israelis...

...High school teachers, doctors, department store managers, engineers—all enjoyed benefits that put them a notch or two above the Soviet masses...

...There are signs, too, that in the past few years the Russians have severely restricted the number of Jewish students admitted to first-rate universities—especially in the physical sciences...

...But even more dismaying than finding a bureaucracy is their sudden recognition that in a free society many of the services the Soviet government performed are left to the individual...

...The immigrants' generally low level of competence also reflects the narrow sort of professionalism encouraged by the Soviet authorities until quite recently, and the rather poor quality of most Soviet professional journals...

...So is the discovery that an Israeli worker does not stand with cap in hand in front of an engineer, let alone in front of a foreman...

...I think they are not really interested...

...They were well aware, of course, that they could rise neither as far nor as fast as Russian gentiles, and discrimination was clearly a major factor in their decision to come to Israel...

...This is to "reimburse" the state for the "investment" lost by his departure...

...At the same time, the government is taking steps to avoid offending the earlier Oriental immigrants by its treatment of the Russian newcomers...

...What do you mean, 'the government here cannot tell a factory to hire somebody...

...Back in Kishinev or Odessa, it required considerable courage on his part to sit in at the passport office, or to sign a letter to UN Secretary General U Thant protesting the Soviet authorities' refusal to issue an exit visa...

...In a recent opinion poll, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Israelis overwhelmingly affirmed the importance of Soviet immigration for the country's future...

...Why doesn't the Israeli government do the same...

...These days the red carpet for each planeload of arrivals from the Soviet Union is rolled out with considerably less fanfare...

...In the first decade of statehood, some 650,000 Jews from Moslem countries immigrated and, given their higher birth rate, by 1970 Oriental Jews constituted about half of Israel's Jewish population...

...Nobody knows what makes the Kremlin approve some requests and reject others—nor why more exit visas are granted at one time than another—but a few broad policies have emerged...

...But nobody has asked me what I do after work...

...Many ELIAHU SALPETER, our regular Middle East correspondent, is a member of the editorial board of Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...

...Soviet books and records are cheaper, and the government will subsidize a seashore vacation—if one has the necessary pull...

...The effort to stem the wave of emigration petitions by staging show trials like the Leningrad skyjack frameup has failed completely...

...Last month's arrivals from Russia say that officials there have decided to impose a 5,000-ruble fee on each applicant for emigration who has received Soviet academic training...

...A CONFLICT OF CULTURES Soviet Jews in the Promised Land BY ELIAHU SALPETER TEL AVIV ONE OF THE MOST compelling questions posed by Israel's small "Black Panther" movement is why do North African, or Sephardic, Jews who came to this country more than 15 years ago still live in overcrowded slum apartments when spacious three-room flats await the next planeload of Russian immigrants to touch down at Lydda Airport...

...and hopes the flow from the Soviet Union—Europe's last great reservoir of Jews?will not be cut off...

...Now the number of immigrants is perhaps a tenth of what it was then, more funds are available and the standard of living has risen—not only here but in Riga, Leningrad and Moscow, too, making it necessary for Israel to offer immigrants more today than it did in the '50s...