8 Friday, April 5, 1985 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS PURELY COMMENTARY ■ 11111111 The Russian Dilemma . =11111111111=1111 • • Continued from Page 2 sharply restricted the number of letters and parcels that get through to refuseniks, many of whom depend on gifts from the West to help them get by. Over the last year or so, police have launched a crackdown on ac- tivists promoting Jewish religion and history. Particular attention has been focused on unofficial teachers of Hebrew who hold courses in private apartments. Since October 1983, six of them have been arrested and sent to labor camps on charges ranging from possession of narcotics to re- sisting arrest. Some of those waiting to leave say they have been summoned by emigration officials and told that exit permits on a large scale never again will be issued. In view of these developing conditions, the speculations over the Gorbachev atti- tudes are vital to the issue and the follow- ing revelations need serious consideration. The facts accummulated and provided by experts on the Russian issue must not be ignored: USSR Sense Of Jewish Values . . . The Biased Policies Scrutinized In the eras of Czarism, when Imperial Russia was fanning anti-Semitism, every change in government was treated with caution. The slogan always was: Let's not judge speedily. Let's not invite fear. Let's be grateful for what we had. Let's hope change in rulership will not be worse. The old experiences invite current ap- plication. Will the assumption of power by Mikhail Gorbachev have an effect on the Kremlin's prejudicial attitudes toward Jews which are legacies from Czardom? Perhaps a partial reply is provided in a New York Times Op-Ed Page essay entitled "will Gorbachev Be Brezhnev II?" by Marshall I. Goldman,. professor of eco- nomics at Wellesley College and associate director of the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, published the day after Gorbachev assumed power: The rapid selection of Mikhail S. Gorbachev as General Secretary — at 54, he is the Politburo's youngest member — may not be as sharp a departure from past Soviet experience as it first appears. Leonid I. Brezhnev was only 57 when he assumed power, and his 18-year record showed nothing to indicate that relative youth, and vigor, is sufficient to make possible radical changes in domestic and foreign policy. This suggests that the system is more important than a leader's age and vitality in de- termining change. Will there be any changes in USSR attitudes toward Jews under the new ad- ministration? Will emigration be permit- ted in accordance with international regu- lations endorsing peoples' rights to choose their domiciles? Will the educational re- strictions on Jews be altered? The doubts overwhelm the hopes. There has been very little in recent decades to indicate an end to Soviet restrictions on Jews. What the Kremlin officially sen- sationalized in recent months was the claim to alleged fame for the Birobidjhan myth. A Birobidjhan troupe did, indeed, tour Russia and gained acclaim as an entertaining theatrical element. This was not strictly Birobidjhanese in that cultur- ally frozen area. It was mostly Muscovite. The USSR especially delights in giv- ing emphasis to the personality and works of Sholem Aleichem. The latest from the Novosti News Agency, shared with us by the information department of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' Washington embassy, makes a big claim, contending that "in 1984 the USSR public widely marked the 125th anniversary of the birth of Sholem Aleichem." Then it proceeds to describe his popularity in the United States and the Fiddler on the Roof sensa- tion. Novosti's explanatory release, bylined Uram Guralnik, described as "a Ph.D. in pilology and a senior research associate at the Gorky Institute of World Literature under the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow," offers the following ex- planations: On the occasion of the jubilee, various Soviet newspapers and magazines, including Sovietish Heimland monthly issued in Yid- dish in Moscow, carried dozens of articles featuring the life and work of the writer. Ceremonial meetings were held in Moscow and Kishinev, Kiev and Chernovtsy and other Soviet cities. Many mus- ical and drama companies gave concerts and showed productions based on Sholem Aleichem's works. At the end of the year Sovetski Pisatel (Soviet Writer) Publishers (Moscow) brought out a 334-page collection of articles and memoirs under the title "Sholem Aleichem — the Man and the Writer." Among the authors whose essays and arti- cles were included in the collec- tion, which is illustrated with rare photographs, are the first Soviet People's Commissar (minister) of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky and the pioneers of post- Revolution literature Alexander Fadeyev, Vsevolod Ivanov and Marietta Shaginyan. Among the writers from the Ukraine, where Sholem Aleichem was born, are his contemporaries Alexander Kor- neichuk, Mikola Bazhan and Petro Panch who tell the reader how his memory is cherished in his native land. Incidentally, there is a memorial museum in Pereyaslav - Khmelnitsky, the writer's birth place. The book also includes articles by prominent Jewish cultural fig- ures — poet Perets Markish, stage director Solomon Mikhoels and actor Veniamin Zuskin who have done a great deal to popularize Sholem Aleichem's literary heri- tage. Memoirs of some of the writer's contemporaries and rela- tives, among them his son-in-law I. Berkovich, his daughter Lyalya Rabinowitz, his brother Vevik Rabinowitz and his granddaughter American writer Bel Kaufman are also included. Bel Kaufman sent her papers to the Soviet Union several years ago, specially for this edition. I had the honor of being editor-in-chief of the book and the author of the afterword. The com- piler of the collection, Professor Moisei Belenky, and I tried to gather and comment on the writer's most informative judge- ments and reminiscences of his contemporaries and relatives." Accepting these interesting details as facts, there will surely be a sharing of appreciation for what the USSR does for Sholem Aleichem: New Soviet hero? the great Yiddish writer, the eminent humorist who gained affection from his U.S. contemporary. There is doubtless the exaggeration about extensive popular cel- ebration of the Sholem Aleichem anniver- sary, but letting that stay as a factual ex- perience, the general theme must be applauded. Nevertheless, the emphasis given to so fascinating a theme must be accompanied by a question: why the isolation of an ad- miration for a Yiddish writer when his fel- low Jews are the subject of discrimination? Allan L. Kagedan, an American Jewish Committee staff member who is recognized as one of the most authoritative scholars on matters relating to the Soviet Union, writing in Soviet Nationality Sur- vey's current issue on "Discrimination Soviet-Style," comments that, "Under- standably, USSR officials are particularly sensitive to Western accusations of Soviet discrimination: not only are such charges ideologically embarrassing, but they also undermine the effectiveness of the Soviet Union's own propaganda." Thereupon Kagedan proceeds to show that "restrictions on Jewish access to higher education are a principal form of Soviet discrimination." He submits that "the Soviet propaganda machine vehe- mently denies even the possibility of artifi- cially low educational quotas for Jews." He then proceeds to expose the facts and to how devastating the Soviet educational bigotries apply to Jews: On May 15, 1984, for example, a young woman claiming to be a Jewish student at Moscow State University informed Western re- porters of the complete absence of anti-Jewish discrimination in the USSR's higher educational institu- tions. What, then, are the facts about Jews and education in the USSR? Statistics are revealing. Between 1969 and 1979, the number of Jewish students in Soviet higher educational institutions plunged by half. Neither emigration nor demography can explain this pre- cipitous decline; discrimination does. Unofficially conducted sur- veys of applicants to Moscow State University's Department of Math- ematics and Mechanics support this conclusion. In 1979-1983, on average, while 80 percent of qual- ified applicants with two non- Jewish parents gained admission to the department, only 13 percent of similarly qualified Jewish stu- dents gained entrance. Indeed, in 1979, one applicant, Gleb Koshevoy, who was initially sus- pected of being Jewish and there- fore was rejected, won admission after submitting a family tree and proving three generations of non- Jewish ancestry. Emigres have provided addi- tional insight into anti-Jewish practices in Soviet educational in- stitutions. A young woman, now a doctoral candidate in computer science at an American university, describes how, when she took an admissions test in Moscow State University, Soviet examiners gave her mathematical problems that were impossible to answer in the allotted time. This method of dis- crimination is so well-known in the Soviet scientific community that the problems reserved for Jewish students have been dubbed "Jewish questions." Human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, a physi- cist, described his attempt to take a 10-minute test given to a Jewish university applicant as follows: "I chose one of the problems on the list. Of course, the student tak- ing the examination is not allowed to choose the particular problem he wishes to solve. I found a very pretty solution to my problem, but it required a non-trivial and in- genious argument, and it took me much more than one hour. Moreover, I was able to work quietly at home. I needed to use my considerable experience in solving these difficult mathematical prob- lems as well as my large store of mathematical knowledge." Why does the Soviet govern- ment permit, indeed encourage, such discrimination? The answer lies in Soviet nationality policy, which endeavors to co-opt the elites of larger, territorially-based nationalities by promising them and their children a middle-class future. Since education is a passport to the middle class, the Soviet regime excludes Jews from universities in favor of Russians and other prominent ethnic groups. Such discrimination, Soviet officials reason, will enhance the regime's popularity with important nationalities. In addition, because most of world Jewry lives in the Western democracies, Soviet officials mis- trust Jews and therefore wish to deny them the educational train- ing required for positions of prestige in Soviet society. Jewish emigration has served to fortify this mistrust, but it is misleading to argue that emigration causes dis- crimination, since it is discrimina- tion that impels Jews to leave in the first place. Besides, discrimina- tion has affected all Soviet Jews — even those with one Jewish parent — regardless of whether or not they have applied to emigrate. It is a simple matter to propagate a theatrical called Birobidjhan or to take credit for the Russian background of Sholem Aleichem. It does not dismiss the discriminating elements. Will Mikhail Gorbachev emerge as a civil libertarian in action, or will such claims be made only on paper when charg- ing racism in America and Israel, as his predecessors have done? The test will be in evidence very soon. Hopefully, it may in- troduce a new era in human relations and in improved USSR policies.