When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry (59 page)

These Soviet Jews had never spared a thought for Israel, and after 1973, there was even less to draw them there. If the Six-Day War in 1967 had inspired a generation of born-again Zionists, the Yom Kippur War in 1973 had the opposite effect. Even though Israel won the war decisively, the Arab states' surprise attack made Jews question the aura of invincibility engendered by the 1967 victory. Suddenly, everyone remembered that Israel was still an embattled and insecure country surrounded by enemies. Its economy also suffered in the mid-1970s, and horror stories quickly made the rounds in Moscow of former university professors cleaning toilets for a living. The Jewish Agency, the Israeli-backed organization in charge of immigration, often took the view that these new arrivals should feel grateful for any help they got, and so the government provided very little to cushion their landing. Hebrew seemed an impossibly foreign language for most of them. On top all this, a large proportion of Soviet Jews in the big cities had married non-Jews. They knew that Israel was a
Jewish
state, and they were afraid they'd be ostracized if they went there. The Soviets preyed on all these fears and anxieties, making sure that disenchanted letters sent from Israel to Russian relatives were frequently printed in the newspapers. They assumed this would cause Soviet Jews to stay in the Soviet Union. But all it did was redirect them to America.

Logistically, this was easy enough. Those who had received permission to leave the Soviet Union made their way via overnight train to Austria. Their destination was the Schoenau Castle, south of Vienna, built as a hunting lodge for Hapsburg royals and now used by the Jewish Agency as a transit center. The agency controlled the processing of all Soviet Jews until 1973, when a terrorist incident caused the Austrians to alter the arrangement. In the fall of that year, Palestinian militants boarded a train filled with Soviet Jews bound for Vienna and took a handful hostage. They demanded that the transit center be dismantled and that all flights to Israel from the Schwechat airport be terminated. Bruno Kreisky, the Socialist chancellor of Austria, and a Jew, agreed to the demands of the fedayeen. But after the hostages were returned, he quietly continued to allow the castle to be used as a transit point, on the condition that it be supervised by the Austrians. Kreisky insisted that he would ensure freedom of choice for those Jews who did not want to go to Israel. In 1973 there was a 3.6 percent dropout rate, but in 1974, after the Austrians took over the transit center, the rate was 18.7 percent, and in 1975 it was 36.9 percent. By the mid-1970s, hundreds of Soviet Jews arrived at the transit center every month. New arrivals were still met by representatives of the Jewish Agency and the Lishka, and those who decided to continue to Israel usually boarded an El Al flight for Tel Aviv within a day. For those who declared their intention to apply for a visa to America, a different procedure was in place.

Two American Jewish institutions, both founded at the turn of the century to deal with Eastern European emigrants and refugees, were on hand and happy to be given a new raison d'être: one group was the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which housed and financially supported the refugees until they received American visas, and the other was the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), which dealt with the process of securing those visas. When new arrivals insisted on going to America, they were transferred to agents of the Joint and HIAS. Representatives of the Jewish Agency tried to convince the émigrés to rethink their decision, but it was usually in vain. As one 1975 report written by a rabbi observing the procedure described it, "The Israelis admit that these sessions, which are held at the HIAS office, often become emotional. They share with many of their countrymen the conviction that every Jew should live in Israel, and feel this most deeply in regard to the Russians whom they have helped rescue and who are putting down fresh roots." But, the rabbi noted, "the plain fact is that these talks almost never succeed. Decisions reached over a period of years are unlikely to be reversed in a brief interview. Besides, misconceptions [about the difference between living conditions in America and Israel] rarely fall easily—people believe what they want to believe. Finally, many of the noshrim [Hebrew for "dropouts"] present reasons that the Jewish Agency cannot challenge. What do you tell a person who doesn't want to serve in the army?"

The dropouts were then flown to Rome, where they were either put up in hotels or given subsidies to settle temporarily in one of two suburbs of the Italian capital, Ostia or Ladispoli, while their American visas were being processed. This usually happened quickly. When it came to Cold War refugees, the United States had a very liberal immigration policy. The anti-Soviet sentiment in America combined with the stories of anti-Semitism made the U.S. government more than willing to admit these refuseniks. In 1976, Congress raised the quota on annual refugee admission from twenty thousand per country to a hundred and twenty thousand total. And if visas were limited, American Jewish organizations found loopholes that simply required the refugee to be financially sponsored. Once these escapees of Communism got to America, there were abundant funds for resettlement, medical care, English classes, and job training. The local Jewish federations embraced their Soviet Jewish brethren, and the U.S. government also contributed to the pot, adding thirteen million dollars between 1973 and 1976 to support the new immigrants. Compared with Israel's difficult economic situation and limited work options, America's opportunities looked to these Soviet Jews like a much smarter choice.

The Israelis were panicking. As the headline of a column in the Tel Aviv daily
Maariv
put it, "We Are Losing the Soviet Aliyah." And that was written in early 1975. As the dropout rate surpassed 50 percent the following year and continued to rise, Nehemiah Levanon, the head of the Lishka, began pursuing a radical plan. He would try to eliminate all aid to Jews who dropped out in Vienna. The offices of the Joint and HIAS had to be shut down.

Levanon began lobbying. One of the most receptive to his plan was Max Fisher, the Detroit philanthropist who had opposed passage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Fisher was chairman of the Jewish Agency's board of governors, the body in charge of determining the agency's policy, and he called a meeting in July 1976 to discuss the issue. Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's prime minister, was present. "We succeeded in opening Russian gates on the assumption that the Jews are leaving for Israel and Israel only," Rabin said. "Had we departed from that, we would never have obtained Soviet consent to Jewish emigration." Others were even harsher in their assessment. Arieh Dulzin, the Mexican-born chairman of the Jewish Agency, said that their "first duty is not to save Jews, we must save only those who will go to Israel."

The meeting resulted in Rabin's appointment of a committee of eight Jewish professionals (half of them American, half Israeli); two months later they produced a concrete proposal. All aid to dropouts would end on February 1, 1977. They assumed they could sell the plan to American Jews by explaining that they were preserving the freedom of choice, simply shifting the moment of choice earlier—from Vienna to the Soviet Union. If Jews wanted to emigrate to America they could always apply for exit visas to America. As soon as it became clear that Israel was actually serious about their plan, Carl Glick, the head of HIAS, wrote a confidential letter to his counterpart at the Joint saying that he and his organization could not accept the proposal. There were many problems, as he saw it. First, even if HIAS and the Joint left Vienna, there were several other refugee aid organizations—such as the International Rescue Committee, the Tolstoy Foundation, and even a group run by Hasidic Jews from the Satmar sect, Rav Tov—that would happily step in to help the dropouts. After all, the Austrian chancellor Kreisky had made it clear that his priority was ensuring freedom of choice. But the bigger problem was that the Israeli proposal rested on a false assumption: that Jews who wanted to go to America could easily get exit visas to emigrate there. This was simply not true. With the exception of a handful of visas for family reunification, the Soviets categorically refused to allow legal emigration to the United States. If the Israelis blocked the path now available to the dropouts, Glick argued, those Soviet Jews who were determined to go to America would be forced to stay in the Soviet Union.

Before the Committee of Eight, as they were known, could respond to these very real concerns, news of the proposal leaked and triggered an incredible backlash. Irving Howe spoke to
Time
in 1976 and expressed the shock of many American Jews: "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." In the same article, Moshe Decter, by then no longer an agent of the Lishka, voiced contempt for his former Israel backers: "Why don't these officials run after the 250,000 Israeli citizens living in the U.S., instead of picking on a few wretched refugees trying to get a breath of fresh air in the West?"

The battle-scarred grass roots, familiar with the heavy-handed Lishka, were of course the least tempered in their response. Si Frumkin, a Union of Councils activist from Los Angeles, wrote in the September 1976 issue of the newsletter
Action-Central for Soviet Jews:
"No one, no one, has the right to tell people where to live and where to go, or not to go. Not the Russians. Not the Americans. Not the Israelis.... For years we have quoted the U.N. Declaration of Universal Human Rights at the Russians. I want to quote it at the 8 Jewish bureaucrats and at the Jewish bosses who sent them to stop the Exodus:
EVERY
HUMAN BEING HAS THE RIGHT TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY OF HIS RESIDENCE AND GO TO A DESTINATION OF HIS CHOICE.
If we don't believe this, then we have joined our enemies."

Many, though not all, of the refuseniks supported this position. In a letter signed by Sasha Lunts, Alexander Voronel, and Vitaly Rubin, all by then in Israel, they made their argument: "All of us are Zionists, not only in word but by our actions, and we regard aliyah as enormously important. At the same time we feel that emigration of Jews from the USSR is necessary, even if they go to countries other than Israel—because of forced assimilation of Jews in the USSR, constantly increasing mass and state anti-Semitism and—in the case of political instability (such as war)—real danger of physical annihilation."

The reaction of American Jewish grass roots was not entirely unexpected. But the Israelis had not anticipated the forceful response of the rest of the community. Not only did the proposal undermine freedom of choice, a treasured American principle, it seemed to directly rebuke American Jews who had chosen to remain in the Diaspora. Add to this the perception—however exaggerated—that Soviet Jews would be abandoned just like European Jews in the 1930s, and the policy change was a very hard sell for the Israelis. When a special task force of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox rabbis made their recommendation on the issue, these were the fears and resentments that guided their opinion. "The traditional Jewish concept of
Pidyon Shvuim
(redemption of captives) imposes an overriding moral obligation to assist all Jews who have managed to leave the Soviet Union," they wrote. "Moreover not to assist may undermine the entire moral basis of our struggle on behalf of Soviet Jews, which is based on the principle of reunion of families and the right of free movement of population grounded in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights."

Even the Jewish federations revolted. The opinion of these local umbrella groups—which brought together in each American city most Jewish organizations and much of their fundraising—was not inconsequential. It was the money collected by these federations that went to support the Jewish Agency; that organization was sustained largely by Diaspora dollars. Leaders from the largest communities, such as those in Chicago and Philadelphia, vowed never to support a policy that would lock Jews into the Soviet Union. By the time the Israeli plan was formally discussed at the General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, an annual gathering of local Jewish leaders, there wasn't much left to say. The session scheduled to discuss the dropouts attracted, according to the
New York Jewish Week,
an "overflow crowd of delegates, with many not able to get into the meeting room and others forced to stand throughout the long session." Both Nehemiah Levanon and Max Fisher made their case. The head of HIAS, Carl Glick, even more convinced that his organization needed to remain in Vienna, gave the opposing view. When it was time for audience comments, one man emotionally reminded everyone of the Holocaust. There was loud jeering at the suggestion of stopping aid. At the end, a dejected Max Fisher knew that if he brought the proposal to a vote, he would only embarrass himself and the Israelis. American Jewry was against it.

The plan to cut aid to dropouts was postponed indefinitely. A few days after the debate, the
Jewish Post and Opinion
dubbed this moment of vocal opposition to the Jewish State "the Magna Carta of the American Jewish community." It had been a long time since American Jews had taken such an independent stand. In effect, they were telling Israel that they had their own outlook and their own interests and would no longer hand over ultimate veto power, especially when it concerned an issue like freedom of choice, such a fundamental part of their communal identity. After the Yom Kippur War, Soviet Jews felt less drawn to Israel; similarly, American Jews felt less compelled to obey its every order. All this came at a moment when Israel was in the middle of peace negotiations with Egypt and badly needed a unified and supportive American Jewry to lean on the Carter administration if Egypt tried to impose a deal Israel could not accept. Unwilling to force the issue, the Israelis relented. And at that moment, the power of Nehemiah Levanon and the Lishka over the movement began to wane.