The Exodus of Soviet Jews-Two Articles Israel Copes with a Wave of Talent
SAMUELS, GERTRUDE
THE EXODUS OF SOVIET JEWS-1 Israel Copes with a Wave of Talent BY GERTRUDE SAMUELS Tel Aviv On May 14, 1948, the reborn state of Israel proclaimed in its Declaration of Independence that...
...But every day there are incidents, so there is a growing sense of instability among the Jews...
...He had a good job at a State research institute...
...Still, there is little despair about coping with the steadily rising wave of Soviet Jewish immigrants...
...The families are subsidized for up to six months while learning Hebrew and making decisions about their futures...
...Absorbing multitudes of newcomers in a short span of time is understandably having a profound economic and psychological impact on the average Israeli, too...
...Would they now please queue up to have pictures taken for identification cards...
...on a Sunday, I waited at Ben-Gurion Airport to witness the arrival of some of the newest, and potentially biggest, wave of immigrants—Jews fleeing from the Soviet Union...
...We could have gone to the States...
...What do you do there...
...she said...
...Why...
...I started to do mitzvoth," he explained, referring to the observance of Orthodox ritual...
...She is employed at Luz in the batteries and electric-chemical department...
...It was a typical group of Soviet arrivées, 450 Jewish men, women and children, that I finally saw silhouetted against the day's earliest light when they trooped in from a chartered El Al Boeing 747 that had landed on a secluded runway...
...He began the practice in the Soviet Union, he said, to conceal his religious inclinations...
...To see how it might be met, I sought out projects involving earlier Soviet emigres...
...He and his sisters— Karin, 17,andMaya, 14—were thrown out of their $415-a-month three-room flat when the landlord demanded $500 a month...
...SATEC, he told me, was set up "as a model to create new concepts for absorbing Soviet scientists and engineers into profitable enterprises...
...This ready-made work force...
...Seeming a bit surprised, he replied, "I'm able to learn more here, to work, have a house, a car—and I'm in the Holy Land...
...Since January they have been coming by the tens of thousands, two or three flights a day, seeking freedom from anti-Semitism in their native land, and above all, they tell you, freedom for their children...
...She recalled walking with her six-month-old nephew asleep in his carriage and admonishing an old woman shouting "things" at her not to disturb theinfant...
...Despite Arab and Palestinian fears, between April 1,1989 and July 1, 1990 less than 1 per cent settled in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip...
...In 1988, of the 18,961 Jews who left the Soviet Union, 2,173 came to Israel...
...On a recent sunny Friday, I toured the 60-family encampment deliberately set up in the Knesset Rose Garden to attract the attention of members of Parliament...
...What about our dilemma...
...The scale of what has been named "Operation Exodus" is having profound effects on this tiny country...
...Problems of housing, unemployment, language, culture, and international politics plague the rescue effort...
...the second was from the people...
...And we'regetting thousands...
...We're looking for American investors," Branover continued...
...He was injured in an Army accident, he said, and needs an operation on his back "which will cost a fortune, but the government won't provide the money...
...Now,41 summers later, at 4:15 a.m...
...hedemanded...
...The cost of Operation Exodus for the budget year 1990-91 has been put at $2.3 billion, and world Jewry has made a commitment to help raise the sum...
...Government planners are looking forward to the infusion of professional and skilled people into the economy...
...the mother brings food, but "doesn't have any money...
...The Ridermans' friends in Holon had been phoned and were awaiting them...
...In 1949, the World War II DPs reached these shores on battered ships...
...First, however, observes Ben-Ari, "Israel will have to convince the world that there is absolutely no correlation at all between the plight of the Russian Jews leaving for Israel and the Palestinian refugee question...
...What weneedmostof all" Ze'evsaid, "is shalom, peace...
...In reply to a question, Olga said she was too dazed to express her feelings, but went on quietly: "For many years we have dreamed to come...
...A toilet and shower have been rigged up for general use, alongside a refrigerator and small stove...
...The contrast between the situation of olim (ascenders) then and today is overwhelming...
...A sleepy little girl was dressed in a sailor-suit with Soviet insignia...
...Then, over a loudspeaker, an official briefs them in Russian and Hebrew on the registration procedure: They can make a free phone call to the Soviet Union, and calls anywhere in Israel, to assure relatives and friends of safe arrival...
...At random, I had focused on a family of five when they entered downstairs...
...On departure from the Soviet Union, they were permitted to take out the equivalent of about $140 per person...
...The following summer, on assignment as a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, I traveled here from Marseilles with a boatload of Displaced Persons—the remnants of the Holocaust, Israel's first ingathering...
...Better than 50 per cent of the newcomers have higher academic degrees (scientists, engineers, computer programmers, doctors...
...In 1979 he went to California, where a sister and uncle already lived, and had his first encounter with Jewish history and tradition...
...immigration policy in place, 82,761 Soviet Jews poured into Israel, and approximately 150,000 more are expected by year's end...
...The impressive complex of laboratories, offices and company-built homes has 75 employees, half of them Israelis and half Russian scientists and engineers (plus a waiting list of 1,000 "with ideas...
...The gray-bearded internationally-known scholar sports a French-style beret...
...The majority leave the USSR on Hungarian, Romanian or Polish charter flights, then transfer in those countries to El Al charters...
...I'm also at Luz, " the longtime resident said...
...The matter of acclimation is critical, however, not only because the Kremlin has decided to allow a Jewish exodus but because the Bush Administration has put an annual ceiling of 50,000 on refugees from the USSR...
...The Mevasseret Zion center that I visited in the Judean Hills, for example, houses 200 families from many countries, including the Soviet Union and Ethiopia...
...But virtually everyone welcomes the newcomers warmly, and wants them to stay...
...Most seem to agree that the newcomers are needed and will eventually benefit the country, but they ask: "What about us...
...The Jewish agency," he understands, "will help us get our licenses to practice...
...Volunteers offer them hot and cold drinks, sandwiches, sweets, and games for the children...
...Yet the blunt truth is that the country was not properly prepared for an ingathering that will quickly add at least 25 per cent to the existing population...
...But it could do little more than shelter them in tent towns on the sands, in wretched transit camps like one at Pardess Charma, or in hastily thrown-up ma'abarot, large refugee compounds consisting of tin, wood and canvas huts...
...The blue eyes hardened...
...But they should not take our money and our houses...
...Just six months ago the young woman from Moscow, who has a Master's degree in electro-chemistry, arrived with her parents (her mother is an economist, her father is a translator...
...Like the Reemys, the Knofus are all native-born, sabras...
...David added, "We are here because we want our children to grow up free...
...They came, as Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion put it, "to build and to be rebuilt...
...Moreover, the effort has been complicated by the serious inflation here and an unemployment rate of 10 per cent—not to mention the events in the Persian Gulf...
...His wife listened wordlessly, looking pale and ill...
...Why Israel...
...David, a youthful 40, is an orthopedic surgeon...
...At the terminal, where security also was tight, they were greeted with shouts of Shalom...
...Some travel to Finland, where they book themselves on whatever commercial carrier is available...
...Iwantthe Russians to come...
...What will you do when the rains start...
...I asked...
...Although a bit weary from the long trip, they generally are robust and ready to begin new lives...
...about 22 per cent had been in services (nurses, drivers, tailors...
...The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, for obvious psychological and economic reasons, is striving to get the Soviet Jews into the mainstream as quickly as possible...
...In particular, resentment has been growing among some Israelis over the instant start-up money and substantial rent support given to the new immigrants...
...Their rent shot up "with the Russians coming" from $250 to $500 a month, and they were evicted...
...We will phone," he said, "and hope they can help us in their flat until we find our own...
...The woman yelled at her, "I don't want to be silent because of your Jewish bastard...
...The Volmans now have a baby daughter, Dvora...
...The Russian Jews arrive at a modern, brightly-lighted airport, often in whole family units...
...But five years ago," he said, "we decided that our real home was in Israel...
...the rest are blue-collar workers...
...A high-tech company created two years ago with $2 million provided by Australian entrepreneur Joseph J. Gutnick, SATEC is boosted as a pilot for "marrying Western business know-how with the raw material of Russian brainpower...
...But after I learn enough Hebrew, I hope to get a job in my field there...
...An Israeli who is originally from Australia told me of meeting a Russian scientist and learning that he worked at Luz Industries...
...Then one of his daughters, a nurse, applied for a visa back in 1981...
...Bitterly worn out by life, desperate, their few belongings in ropebound bundles, they were apprehensive about starting anew even among their own...
...Others had on Western-style blue jeans and T-shirts (several emblazoned with "Boss," "Gucci," "I Love the South...
...In Frunze there are perhaps 5,000 Jews...
...It is estimated that another 1 million will arrive in the next four years, if not sooner...
...The last includes a check to help cover the coming months' expenses ranging from the equivalent of $250 dollars for an individual to $3,000 for a family, depending on size, plus an additional $125 per person in cash to deal with immediate needs...
...They all hope to come...
...Where else can we go...
...In nine developing towns from the Galilee to the Negev 45,000 new dwellings are under construction...
...Housing Minister Ariel Sharon recently told American Jewish Committee delegates visiting Israel of plans to purchase mobile homes from Britain and the Netherlands as well...
...from a small crowd of friends and relatives, and with tears and flowers...
...His voice brightened as he declared, "With this Russian influx —look at this enormous treasure...
...As we said our goodbyes, David and Olga expressed their awe at the instant financial assistance...
...In one laboratory Maya Kapchitz, 42—from Frunze, near Tashkent, in southern Soviet Asia—studied her array of computers and test tubes: She is doing an analysis of solutions to separate gold and silver, so that they can be recycled for industrial use...
...Shortly, direct flights between the USSR and Israel are expected to get under way...
...The attractive, white-coated woman paused briefly to answer a few questions...
...Yes, the tall, soft-spoken emigre said, she "did feel like a Jew in Russia...
...I asked...
...Those without a place to stay will be housed without charge in hotels for up to two weeks while arranging for permanent quarters...
...Their hometown of over a million people "had nosynagogueor Hebrew courses," Olga noted...
...The government has promised incentives but hasn't impiemerited them...
...The two-stage journey to the Promised Land is made in one of three ways, all paid for by the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental organization with emissaries in the Soviet Union...
...Bitterness is especially expressed by young couples who have done their Army service and feel they are overtaxed, or who have actually lost their apartments because they can't afford the new steep rents...
...She experienced two kinds of anti-Semitism that made her determined to leave: "The first was official, from the government and on my job...
...This has resulted in widespread evictions as greedy landlords, knowing they can replace old tenants with subsidized newcomers, send rents skyrocketing...
...He also met and married Yael, a student from France, and became an American citizen...
...He sent the invitation for us...
...In fact, during its first year in Israel, said an official, it will actually be granted a total of approximately $15,000...
...Nearly 100 families occupy the largest site in Jerusalem's Valley of the Cross, and camp leaders have been turning away other homeless because of overcrowding...
...Former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky had warned the government early on that the number of new olim from the USSR would be far greater than was being anticipated...
...Its individual cottages are white-washed and comfortable, with good furnishings, "to give them a measure of dignity at once on arrival...
...The Jewish Agency press spokesman Gad Ben-Ari, recently back from the Soviet Union, told me: "Nobody knows how long glasnost or perestroika will last...
...Tagged trunks, suitcases and a number of musical instruments were already being neatly stacked...
...The situation has been dramatically underscored by angry and despairing evicted families who have pitched tents in some 30 areas of the country from Haifa to Eilat...
...She was fired, but she kept applying and became a refusenik...
...Very few are interested in farming...
...Her husband, Chaim, 31, who takes careof their three small children, limped badly toward us...
...their toughest general, "General Ein Brera" (No Alternative), Israelis only half-joked, had not demobilized them...
...THE EXODUS OF SOVIET JEWS-1 Israel Copes with a Wave of Talent BY GERTRUDE SAMUELS Tel Aviv On May 14, 1948, the reborn state of Israel proclaimed in its Declaration of Independence that it "will be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of their dispersion...
...Nevertheless, integrating the heavy flow of intellectual capital and skills poses a considerable challenge to the State...
...Its slogan, "The Light of Tomorrow—Today," almost appears to apply symbolically to its Russian scientists...
...During the first eight months of 1990, with the new U.S...
...These people," added Jewish Agency spokesman BenAri, "invest a lot of themselves, physically and emotionally, in building a new life here...
...She took the photographs accompanying this article...
...For many emigres, putting their lives together again requires much patience and perseverance...
...He and his wife, Elena, and their two daughters came to Israel two years ago...
...Roughly 4,000 pubhe housing units are also being renovated and the government is purchasing unsold homes or apartments from contractors...
...even fewer want to join a kibbutz, which is viewed as another form of kolkhoz...
...I want to put down the book that is over, with its good pages and bad pages," a young woman said, "and start a new book...
...It was not a question for me...
...Or, they may elect to go to any of the 40-odd absorption centers around the country, where they will be taught the language and can start looking for jobs and apartments...
...The story is not atypical...
...A former member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, she arrived 18 months ago with her husband, a math teacher, and their three children...
...Although I did visit the Moscow synagogue...
...When he got to Israel in 1972, Branover joined the faculty of Ben-Gurion University in the Negev...
...Flimsy tents furnished with nothing more than mattresses and cushions cover the once lush garden, now tramped down...
...Seated next to a clerk, Davidreceived the equivalent of $625 in cash, and a "check for deposit" of slightly more than $2,700 to draw on for rent, education, food, and the like...
...A refusenik who struggled for 15 years to leave the USSR, he was the first Jew holding a Doctor of Sciences degree to receive a Soviet exit visa...
...Any country that will have me and give me a visa, I will go to," Chaim said bitterly...
...So I don't know how to answer why...
...Their parents are divorced, and young Yitzchak has been trying to keep the children together...
...Hespat...
...They say it is too difficult in Israel because of the bureaucracy here...
...Yael Barack, 29, listening to the exchange, answered...
...A small percentage complete the second leg on regularly scheduled El Al flights...
...Everyone will receive start-up money, in cash and checks...
...While I was talking to the Reemys, a patrol car from the Knesset drove past...
...In addition, there is a frenzy of building activity here aimed at sheltering both the homeless and the newcomers...
...The women's attire, too, ranged from the formal to the casual...
...in 1989, the corresponding figures were 71,642 and 12,056...
...The difficulties of adjustment to a new society and a new language are very real, though...
...They are working on advanced instruments for industry, such as electronic power meters, on the extraction of gold and precious metals from low-grade ore and industrial scrap, and the like...
...In private cubicles, government clerks tapping away at computers are registering the olim, handing them their ID cards, rights booklet and "absorption basket...
...Oneof them is Anna Kaminsky...
...She'll stay right here, and have the baby in the garden...
...So, God help us...
...Ze'ev Volman, 43, an electrical engineer from Kishinev, the capital of Soviet Moldavia, came to Israel with his wife Yael, 37, by way of the United States...
...In response to queries about how many see the move to Israel as bringing them a step closer to the United States, it is noted that studies of recent smaller Soviet immigrant groups show that the vast majority—95 percent—have stayed...
...The same Ramot industrial zone is the home of Luz Industries (Israel) Ltd., a subsidiary of a California company opened in 1979 primarily to design and develop solar thermal power...
...Jews are eager to get out...
...To bridge the river of problems...
...I was always conscious of being a Jew because of all the anti-Semitism at school and from the neighbors," he said...
...Once gathered in the BenGurion Airport terminal, the new olim climb a flight of stairs to a huge reception hall...
...The scene played havoc with my memory and my feelings...
...The Ridermans have friends from Sverdlovsk in Holon, a district of Tel Aviv that is fast becoming known as "Little Russia...
...What other country," Olga marveled, "would do this for us...
...Soon he was fired, "and for years I was a watchman, an electrician, anything," until, in 1988, he got permission for the whole family to leave...
...Eric Khasin, 55, a Moscow metallurgical engineer, works alongside Anna Kaminsky...
...He said frankly, "In Russia, I didn't know what it meant to be a Jew...
...Reacting to the complaints that it was unprepared to deal with the Soviet immigration, the Israeli government is hastily trying to buy thousands of prefabricated homes from manufacturers in the United States and other countries...
...The officer behind the wheel called out, "Just to see if you're okay," and went on his way...
...Gertrude Samuels, who regularly covers the UN for The New Leader, is the author of several books on Israel and the Middle East...
...The family will get additional stipends for rent, if necessary...
...This is not a way-station to America...
...They will be given a free taxi ride to their destinations...
...It's not good that the Russians are given everything," hewenton...
...To some extent, the fact that 90 per cent of the Soviet immigrants are choosing direct integration—that is, to adapt to their new surroundings with the moral support of friends and relatives or on their own, rather than at an absorption center—has heightened current pressures...
...They're good for us...
...Anyway, we are not religious...
...if they have not moved on to permanent residences by then, they are charged a small rental...
...Thisgovernment...
...I turned to speak to Maggi Knofu, 26, eight months pregnant, sitting wearily nearby under a shade tree...
...In demonstrations and marches they are calling upon the government to find them a place to live, and to recognize that not only the incoming Russian Jews have problems...
...Why not...
...One Knesset member came by once to talk to us, then nothing," said Yitzchak Reemy, 18...
...The scientific director of SATEC is Riga-born Herman Branover...
...Olga, buxom and moist-eyed, in pink blouse and blue skirt, is an architect and textile designer...
...The impoverished Jewish State, itself hardly recovered from having repulsed five invading Arab armies during the 1947-48 War of Independence, embraced these ragged survivors with love and compassion...
...We didn't personally experience anti-Semitism, no, but it was all around us...
...Yet Israel's population of roughly 650,000 was still on military alert...
...With a shrug and a smile, shesaid, "My brother-in-law, Boris, came first, after 10 years as a refusenik...
...It is not that they have suffered violent anti-Semitism or pogroms...
...That brought me to the industrial zone of Ramot, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, where the Shamir Advanced Technologies Engineering Center (SATEC) is located...
...Some of the Russian men wore business suits and carried briefcases...
...The Russian responded wryly, "I sweep the floors...
...Interestingly, only about 10 per cent of the Russian immigrants go to absorption centers, despite the opportunity they afford for getting acclimated...
...Gray-haired, with very direct blue eyes and answers, he is developing a new technology for producing electrical car batteries...
...But experts here say Israel may ultimately have to turn to other governments, and to institutions like the World Bank for humanitarian assistance...
...David and Olga Riderman, who are from Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains of western Siberia, came with their daughters, Anna, 9, and Elana, 6, and Olga's 66-year-old mother...
...We came to Israel...
...On the contrary, the overall attitude is reflected in a quip that has been revived by old-timers who remember the 1949 ingathering of warbattered DPs: "The situation is impossible but not hopeless...
Vol. 73 • September 1990 • No. 12
