PATH TO FREEDOM

tion process been as rapid. Where
Jews once waited for years for permis-
sion to leave, many of today's
emigrants are waiting only weeks.
Last year about 19,000 Soviet
Jews were permitted to leave; this
year that figure will more than dou-
ble. Five thousand Jews are expected
to leave in April, and 6,000 in May.
This opening of the gates has
been attributed to the policies of
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, but
Soviet Jews emigrating now claim
that an unexpected byproduct of
glasnost and perestroika is a
dramatic increase in- Soviet
anti-Semitism.
"Before Gorbachev, life was very
hard but predictable," explained Olga
Yastrubetskaya, 44, who hopes to set-
tle with her husband and teen-age
daughter in Australia, where she has
cousins. "But there has been an ex-
plosion of anti-Semitism from groups
now allowed to express these sen-
timents because of free speech." She
said that anti-Semitic sentiments
among the masses, long suppressed
by the government, have come to the
fore, and Jews live under greater fear
of persecution. "We used to go to bed
at night knowing how bad things
were, but with a sense of stability,"
said Yastrubetskaya, who lived in the
Ukraine. "We knew what to expect.
Now we are frightened of the
unknown."
Marina Getsuk agrees. A recent
emigrant from Leningrad, she said
that "under Gorbachev, only the
words are better. Democracy is only
good when it is in good hands." She
and her husband, both physicians,
have faced professional discrimina-
tion, and their 15-year-old daughter
was told that to advance academical-

ly she must identify herself not as a
Jew but as a Russian. "When our
doorway was smeared with black and
red paint, who could we turn to for
help? The police officials say there is
no problem."
Olga and Marina and their
families are now in Vienna, the first
leg of the tortuous journey to freedom
for emigrating Soviet Jews.
Once a Soviet Jew receives an
Israeli visa and leaves the USSR, he
is flown to Vienna, where he and hun-
dreds of others are met by an official
of the Jewish Agency, representing
the State of Israel. The agent asks
who is going to Israel. Those who res-
pond affirmatively — and the current
figures are as low as one percent —
are immediately put on a plane to Tel
Aviv. (Two Sundays ago, for example,
five of the 500 arriving Soviet Jews
went to Israel.)
The others are taken to a hotel for
the night and are brought by bus late
the next morning to the Vienna head-
quarters of the two international
Jewish relief organizations charged
with their care, the Joint Distribution
Committee (JDC, or simply the Joint)
and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society (HIAS).
The scene at the headquarters on
Brahmsplatz on a recent Monday con-
jured up memories of what Ellis
Island must have been like for our
parents and grandparents who arriv-
ed in the United States from Russia
and Eastern Europe in-the early part
of the century. The small waiting
area on the second floor was so
crowded with hundreds of people that
a visitor had to push to make his way
through.
The air was oppressive among the
men, women and children waiting,

Uri Ben-Tzion, the director of the
American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee effort in
Ladispoli, is frustrated that so
few transmigrants settle in Israel.
He advocates a more aggressive
approach by Jerusalem to reverse
the trend.
Photo By Gary Rosenblatt

and one noticed the look of confusion
in their eyes. First, they are inter-
viewed by a JDC representative,
whose primary job is to determine
that they are Jewish, since as many
as 30 percent of the emigrating
Soviets are not Jewish and there are
reports that Moscow is sending out
undesirables, including criminals.
Ronnie Belkin, a young Israeli
woman, is the lone JDC interviewer,
and she often screens as many as 400
people a day in her tiny office.
The interviews are brief and to
the point. What is the nationality on
your passport? (In Russia, "Jewish"
is a nationality.) Was your mother
Jewish? Your father? What are their

first names? If they are deceased, are
they buried in a Jewish cemetery? Do
you know any Jewish holidays?
We were told of one JDC
representative who kept a tallit, or
prayer shawl, in his drawer and ask-
ed the transmigrants to identify it.
Suspicions that some non-Jews trying
to pass as Jews were memorizing the
proper responses were heightened
when the JDC representative pulled
a prayer book out of his desk and the
man he was interviewing shouted,
"tallit."
"After two years of these inter-
views, I can tell almost immediately
if they are Jewish or not," says
Belkin. "I can tell from their faces,
their names, from my gut reaction."
About 85 percent of the Soviet
Jews are fully Jewish, and 15 percent
from mixed marriages. A high
percentage of couples are intermar-
ried. According to JDC policy, if one
family member is fully Jewish the
family is accepted. -
Sitting in on the interview pro-
cess for an hour, one saw a range of
applicants: a young engineer from
Leningrad who hopes to settle in
Boston, though he knows no one
there; a 29-year-old woman who plans
to live in Chicago; a family of 22 who,
it turns out, are Pentecostals (and are
politely referred to a Christian relief
group); a young Armenian woman
whose Jewish husband was aided by
the JDC two months earlier; a young
man from Vilnius with a father-in-
law in Houston. And so it goes.
For the benefit of her visitors,
Belkin asks each applicant if he or
she would consider settling in Israel.
They cite any number of reasons —
Israel is a war zone, the climate is too
hot, there are no jobs, no housing, lit-

THE LONGER ROAD TO JERUSALEM

Joel Tauber believes Israel
must overcome Soviet propaganda
as soon as the Soviet Jews get off
the train in Vienna.
Shelley Tauber vividly remem-
bers the bleakness of life in
Moscow and Leningrad.
And Juliana Tauber, age 12,
missed meeting her bat mitzvah
twin in the Soviet Union and in
the State of Israel.
The Taubers completed a
whirlwind trip last month to the
Soviet Union, Austria, Italy and
Israel. They visited seven cities in
10 days while following the route
of emigrating Soviet Jews.
The trip marked Juliana's bat
mitzvah. In lieu of a party, the
Taubers planned to meet Juliana's
twin in the Soviet Union and have
Juliana's bat mitzvah at the Wall
in Jerusalem.

22

FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1989

Although Juliana's first letter
to her twin came back with a note
that the girl had moved, the Tau-
bers decided to keep their trip
plans as an educational experi-
ence for Juliana and sister
Melissa, age 19.
So it was off to a Moscow and
Leningrad that were "drab and
brown. The people looked like they
had no emotion," Shelley said. The
Taubers have vivid memories of
the long lines of Soviets waiting to
buy ice cream from a street vendor.
In Vienna, Juliana met a man
at the transmigration point who
insisted that he would go only to
the United States. He did not want
his sons to serve in the Israeli
army.
Says Joel, a past president of
Detroit's Jewish Welfare Federa-
tion, "The Israeli government and
the Jewish Agency must mount a

massive marketing campaign
right in Vienna to overcome the
negative views the Soviet Jews are
coming out with."
Soviets in Israel told the Taubers
they would help in any campiagn
to convince Soviet Jews to make
aliyah. "We (American Jews) are
the marketing experts," says Joel.
"We have to prepare the materials
and have the Soviet Jews in Israel
meet the new immigrants right at
the trains in Vienna. We have to
have the jobs waiting" in Israel.

Back in the United States,
friends have asked the Taubers if
they saw any shooting while in
Israel. "If Jews here believe that,"
says Shelley, "what must the
Soviet Jews think" after years of
Soviet propaganda?

Soviet immigrants in an Israeli
absorption center near Tel Aviv

became very emotional and
animated while discussing
negative events in Israeli life with
the Taubers. "But when we asked
them if they would do it again —
come to Israel — they say, 'Of
course, with big smiles on their
faces." Joel says the Soviet im-
migrants were "passionate" about
jobs, housing and the Israeli cost
of living. "But ultimately they
were glad to be there. They could
not understand why anyone would
not want to go to Israel."
Those who choose the United
States over Israel believe Israel "is
a normal place, but with a war,"
says Juliana. "Most," says Shelley.
"don't know what it is to be Jewish
except to be discriminated
against."
Says Joel, "They think Israel is
only for religious people."
— Alan Hitsky