18

Friday, May 31, 1985

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

tough approach to bargaining with the
Soviets.
While appreciating the demonstrations
of rabbis and other Jewish groups, Misha
worries about a recent easing of pressure
from professionals on professionals. Let-
ters from scientific societies and promi-
nent scientists to their Soviet counter-
parts have strong impact, he reports.
Whenever a delegation of scientists comes
to the USSR, they need to make efforts to
contact refusenik colleagues. When they
fail to do so, the Soviets notice and read
it as slackening of interest.
Misha accompanies us back to the cen-
tral part of the city after we have exchang-
ed gifts and embraces. We agree to come
back again on Friday for the promised
seminar.
When we return on Friday afternoon, we

meet another refusenik family, that of
Shimon and Vera Katz. Their son Sasha
is one of the few fortunate Jewish students
who was admitted to one of the institutes
of higher scientific education. Only the in-
sititutes for road building and oil in
Moscow still admit Jews. Admission to
Moscow University is equally restricted.
Shimon, Vera, Sasha and even teenaged
Lena, who attends the equivalent of our
tenth grade, are all mathematicians.
"The family business," jokes Vera, a
vivacious brunette. In the 1950's, given
opportunity at last, Jews poured into the
high tech and scientific fields. "Now they
can do without us," Misha observes.
Like Misha, Shimon no longer works in
his field of expertise. Not only was he
summarily dismissed from the institute
where he taught and did research once he

How To Rendezvous
With A Refusenik

A

merican Jewish novices
trying to make contact
with refuseniks in the
Soviet Union worry as much sometimes
about the mechanics of meeting their
friends as they do about the menace of
the KGB.
Getting around on Moscow's superb
160 miles of Metro system is easy.
There are changemaking machines at
each station to help you acquire the
necessary combination of kopeks.
Metro maps are sold at street kiosks.
Rail lines are all color coded. And
besides, the experienced refuseniks,
through sad, ironically useful years of
rendezvousing, have learned how to
give American visitors helpful and ex-
plicit directions.
They will, for example, name the
station with the shortest name before
their own stop because they understand
visitors' difficulty in dealing with the
Russian alphabet and multisyllabic
place names.
"I will meet you at the center of the
station platform after the train pulls
out," directed one -man.
"Take the last carriage of the train
and stay at the end of the station until
I find you," said another.

.

A third refusenik assured us that he
would find us on the platform. We got
off the train, strolled the entire length
of the platform and saw no one who re-
sembled our man. We did see assorted
soldiers and policemen. When the next
train pulled into the station, our contact
materialized from behind a pillar, made
eye and nodding contact with us as he
joined the crowd coming out of the train
and directed us up the escalator.
A fourth refusenik didn't waste
kopeks gaining access to the metro
station. Come out of the station, he
directed, and he'd find us.
He did. We recognized him because,
like many refuseniks we had en-
countered, he was bearded; a style fair-
ly unusual among Soviet men.
When we asked how he recognized us,
he simply smiled as if. to say an
American can be spotted in any crowd,
no matter how he or she tries to blend.
We wore our brand new Russian fur
hats, but we were the only peOple wear-
ing tan raincoats, bright scarves and
boots of distinctive style. We were also
the only people chattering in English.
In fact, we seemed to be the only people
in the subway crowd even speaking to
each other.
E.A.S.
•

THE REFUSENIKS

•

applied to emigrate, he was also waylaid
a few days afterward outside his apart-
ment and beaten so severely by KGB
agents that he was hospitalized for eight
weeks. Now he works only at odd jobs and
occasional tutoring. A pale figure, he
seems nervous, as if always looking over
his shoulder.
Another Sasha, a young man of 25, is
also present. Married, he has recently
become a father. His parents live in Israel.
He asks me to take his picture and send
it to them. I do. Then Misha explains that
Sasha is about to apply to emigrate for the
first time. Given the current restrictions
on emigration, Sasha demonstrates great
conviction in applying now. Only by a
miracle will he be able to hold onto his job
as a mathematician. Mostly, he worries
about the future of his newborn child.
What will Sasha have to endure before he
wins his freedom, if he wins his freedom?
We proceed with our "seminar" on free
will and Reform and Conservative Juda-
ism. Exposed only to Orthodoxy before,
the adults are intrigued with the existence
of alternative practices. Shimon points out
that young refusenik Jews today, such as
his son, are learning more about Jewish life
than their parents ever knew.
As the afternoon draws to a close, uncer-
tain whether we are expected to remain for
dinner, we make some remarks about
another rendezvous. Misha and Marina
press us to stay. Marina goes into the kit-
chen and begins bringing out a veritable
feast: a roast of beef, salads of eggs, pick-
led cabbage and beets, dry white Georgian
wine, and homebaked cakes and cookies.
"Let us celebrate Shabat as you would
at home," Marina invites us.
At home, we said, we would begin by
blessing Shabat candles. As Marina
brought out candles, Misha discreetly, and
without remarking on it, went to the win-
dows of their ground floor apartment, pull-
ed down the shades and drew the heavy
draperies.
As we recited blessings over candles,
wine and bread, our hosts joined us in the
familiar words, watching our lips and
following the recitation. Later we played
a tape of Cantor Melvin Luterman of Oheb
Shalom chanting Shabat songs, and we all
sang along where we could. The tape was
presented to Mishka in preparation for his
bar mitzvah two years hence, in Israel, we
hoped.
Mishka, who has his mother's round face
and expressive dark eyes, listened keenly,
understanding much more English than he
can speak. He's so quick, so bright, the son
of two mathematicians. But a Jewish boy,
only a few years from the all-important
eighth year of school when his academic
future will be decided. He is the son of

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