PATH TO FREEDOM
ment and helped pressure the Soviet
Union into opening wider the gates
of emigration, is now the major
stumbling block to an otherwise stir-
ring victory.
The number of Soviet Jews being
allowed out of Russia is steadily in-
creasing — Israeli officials are predic-
ting that hundreds of thousands may
be given permission to emigrate —
but the number of them allowed into
America is dramatically decreasing.
More than a thousand Jews are
emigrating from the Soviet Union
each week of late, but as many as 40
percent are being rejected by the
United States on the grounds that
they do not qualify as refugees flee-
ing persecution.
Why has Washington hardened
its policy? What is the fate of those
transmigrants rejected by the United
States? Why aren't more Soviet Jews
choosing to live in Israel, and what
can be done to reverse that pattern?
And how can the American Jewish
community ensure that those Soviet
Jews who come to the United States
will transmit a positive Jewish iden-
tity to their children?
A journalist comes to Ladispoli
with many questions. After talking
with scores of transmigrants and a
dozen hard-pressed Jewish officials,
one leaves with few answers, but with
a better understanding of the com-
plexities of the situation and a deeper
compassion for those caught up in
this human drama.
This Passover there will be more
than 9,000 Soviet Jews here, in lim-
bo in Ladispoli. They are part of an
historic tale of Jewish history whose
chapter is yet unfinished. What is cer-
tain is that their fate, and the fate of
tens of thousands more waiting to fill
their places here, has enormous im-
plications regarding the future of
Soviet Jewry, Washington-Jerusalem
relations, Zionism and Israel, and
American Jewish life.
The looks on the faces of the
transmigrants in Ladispoli, Italy
summarize their feelings of
frustration and despair, trapped
in a bureaucratic limbo.
Photo By Richard Lobell
"Had not the Lord taken our
fathers from Egypt, then we, our
children, and our children's
children would have remained
enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt."
The Haggadah
The modern-day Exodus story
begins in the USSR, where more and
more Soviet Jews have been em-
boldened to apply for emigration. Not
since the heady days of 1979, when
more than 50,000 Jews were allowed
to leave the USSR, has the emigra-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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