OPINION
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1CONTENTS
Encourage Soviet Jews
To Settle In Israel
NATAN SHARANSKY
Special to The Jewish News
D
wring the past two
decades there has
been no better proof of
Jewish solidarity than the
worldwide campaign on
behalf of Soviet Jewry. This
campaign was developed in
response to the miracle of the
Jewish national revival in the
Soviet Union, a miracle
essentially Zionist in its
nature. Supporting Soviet
Jews basically was identical
to supporting Israel, Zionism
and aliyah.
The spirit of the Jewish na-
tional leadership in the USSR
has not changed, but the
average Soviet Jew, who has
been given the freedom to
emigrate by a handful of
internationally-supported
Soviet activists, is very far
from Judaism and Zionism.
If Israel does not
act now, masses
of Soviet Jews will
simply not come.
The violent suppression of
Jewish identity by the Soviet
authorities has made it more
likely that anyone who can
emigrate will opt for a
destination other than Israel.
From the end of the 1970s
until a short time ago, Soviet
emigration policy was so
restrictive, and anti-Jewish
repression was so harsh, that
confronting the authorities
was the primary task of the
international Soviet Jewry
campaign. The State of Israel,
the Jewish communities of
the free world and the Jewish
movement in the USSR re-
mained united in this task,
despite disagreements on the
issue of the final destination
of the small number of Jews
permitted to leave.
When the Gorbachev
regime adopted a new policy,
one much better adjusted to
Western demands, the situa-
tion changed dramatically.
Currently, 2,500 to 3,000
Jews are leaving each month,
and there is a greater
tolerance for Jewish culture
in the Soviet Union. But at
the very time our campaign
seems close to achieving one
of its main goals, a legal
guarantee for freedom of
emigration, Jewish solidarity
around the Soviet Jewry issue
threatens give way to a sharp
conflict of interests.
A massive and relatively
easy Jewish exodus has made
the United States more selec-
tive in providing political
refugee status to those im-
migrants requesting to enter
the United States. As long as
there is no turn for the worse
in the Soviet Union, the
organized American Jewish
community may either accept
this new reality or fight it.
A related dilemma is how
much of the various federa-
tions' funds will be spent for
local resettlement of the
growing number of Soviet
emigres, and how much goes
to Israel, where only a small
fraction of Soviet Jews cur-
rently resettle?
Both of these issues
threaten to change the Soviet
Jewry issue from a major uni-
fying force in the Jewish
world into a source of great
disunity.
Within the American
Jewish community, there is a
growing trend to reorder
priorities so that the absorp-
tion of Soviet immigrants
becomes the main respon-
sibility. Whatever the
language and arguments us-
ed, this trend is a clear ex-
pression of a larger process of
disengagement from Israel, a
symptom of the growing crisis
in Israel-Diaspora relations.
As someone who has fought
for the freedom of emigration
of Soviet Jews and who has
never supported coercion to
bring about their aliyah, I
feel I have a right and an
obligation to say the
following:
First, it is not the job of the
world Jewish community to
fight to make it easier for
Soviet Jews to enter America.
Equally, it is not the job of the
Jewish state to fight to close
the doors of America to fellow
Jews. The State of Israel is
always open to every Jew, and
this basic value is re-
emphasized by the changes
now taking place in
American immigration
procedures.
Second, there is a big dif-
ference between a dollar
spent on resettlement in the
United States and a dollar
spent on absorption in Israel.
The first is humanitarian
assistance; the second is an
investment in our common
Jewish future. The growing
number of Soviet Jews going
to the United States must be
a reason for enlarging rather
than reducing support for im-
migrant absorption in Israel.
Otherwise, we will create
an endless cycle in which the
more Jews are resettled in
Continued on Page 10
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CANDLELIGHTING
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April 7, 1989
7:47 p.m.
Sabbath ends April 8 8:53 p.m.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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