Soviet Jews: Israel Wants Them All

Ever since Moses led the children of Israel out of Egyptian slavery, Jews have been dutybound to redeem their kin from bondage and oppression. In the past two decades Israel and the American Jewish community have concentrated on redeeming Jews in the Soviet Union from discrimination, harassment and, sometimes, outright persecution. LET OUR PEOPLE GO has been the compelling slogan of a massive campaign to win for the U.S.S.R.'s 3 million Jews the right of free emigration. Yielding reluctantly to worldwide pressure, the Kremlin has granted exit permits to about 125,000 Jews since 1970. No other Soviet minority has been allowed to leave the country in any significant numbers.

Halfway House. To the dismay and embarrassment of Israeli officials, a growing number of Russian Jews are reluctant to go to Israel. While the vast majority of refugees in the early 1970s went to Israel, 59% of those who arrived at the halfway house for emigrants in Vienna last month expressed a desire to settle in the U.S. Now a long-simmering dispute between Israelis and some U.S. Jewish organizations over the destination of the refugees may jeopardize the future of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union.

To Israeli officials, the refugees' lack of interest in becoming citizens of the Jewish state seems like rank ingratitude and an affront to Zionist faith. The refugees, however, regard their free choice of a country as a natural human right that had long been denied them in the U.S.S.R. Many Russian Jews have been put off by reports of difficult conditions for refugees in Israel. Others are plainly fearful of subjecting themselves and their children to the ever present danger of war with the Arab world. Asked one would-be U.S. immigrant from the Soviet Union: "After having suffered so much, don't we have a right to live peacefully in America?"

Unable to stem the tide of about 10,000 Russian Jews who have already emigrated to the U.S., the Israeli government has moved to force most refugees in the future to come to Israel. As the Israelis explain it, their basic problem is with the way station in Vienna, where Russian Jews arrive in the West by train. Nearly all emigrants must travel on Israeli visas to meet Soviet requirements for exit. Those wishing to proceed to the U.S., however, may stop in Vienna and request rerouting to the U.S. They apply to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and other American humanitarian organizations for financial and practical assistance.

These America-bound refugees receive money raised nationwide among American Jews. The U.S. Government since 1973 has contributed $13 million to their support. Some angry Israelis have dubbed those who seek this aid "defectors" or "dropouts." Josef Almogi, chairman of the Jewish Agency, which supervises all immigration to Israel, complains that "those who drop out enjoy better conditions. They can stay in Europe three to six months at the expense of American agencies that then get them refugee visas to go on to America, Canada or wherever."

An early Israeli attempt to stop the dropouts involved trying to establish an air link between Moscow and Tel Aviv. In that way, Russian Jews might be flown directly to Israel, thus eliminating the Vienna stopover and the refugees' option to go elsewhere. When the Soviets refused to sanction the new air route, Israeli officials tried to persuade HIAS and other Jewish agencies to cut off all aid to the dropouts in Vienna. If this happened, Russian Jews seeking to come to the U.S. would be discouraged from applying to leave. This would sharply reduce emigration from the U.S.S.R.

Czarist Pogroms. HIAS, whose tradition of helping refugees from Russia reaches back to the czarist pogroms of the 1880s, has thus far resisted Israeli pressure. Last week the Israeli government dispatched two top officials, Yehuda Avner and Nehemia Levanon, to a meeting of Jewish organizations in Philadelphia to press its case. Still, no decision was taken on the issue of cutting off aid to dropouts.

Israelis justify their drastic proposals by arguing that the "misuse" of Israeli visas by U.S.-bound refugees will give the Kremlin a pretext to cut back on Jewish emigration on grounds of fraud. There is some evidence, though, that the Russians are indifferent to the actual destinations of the emigrants, even though they are acting in contravention of the Helsinki accords by restricting exit permits arbitrarily. The Israelis have proposed that Russian Jews seeking to go to the U.S. should apply at the nearest American consulate in the U.S.S.R., but that is an unrealistic suggestion: this year fewer than 1,000 Jews have been allowed to come to the U.S. without first applying for exit to Israel, and these all had family in America.

Many Israelis and Russian Jews in Israel are disturbed by their government's tough tactics. So are some American Jews who are normally sympathetic to Israel's needs and desires. Rabbi Alexander Schindler, the chairman of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, last week pointedly declared that "the main priority is to save Jews no matter where, and the first priority is getting them out of the Soviet Union." Remarked Author Irving Howe: "We didn't campaign to 'let our people go' only to Israel. The central moral and humanitarian issue has been to get Jews out of the Soviet pesthole, regardless of where they want to settle." Moshe Decter, a Zionist and a leading U.S. specialist on Soviet Jewish affairs, characterized Israeli pressure to deny help to U.S.-bound refugees as "stonyhearted and un-Jewish." Decter added, "Why don't these officials run after the 250,000 Israeli citizens who are living in the U.S., instead of picking on a few wretched refugees trying to get a breath of fresh air in the West?"

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