NOTEBOOK
Major Story Of 90s
Is Already Here
GARY ROSENBLATT
Editor
We are only five
days into the
new decade, but
already one of
the major
themes of the
next 10 years is
emerging: the
emigration of hundreds of
thousands of Soviet Jews to
the West, primarily Israel,
and the major effort needed to
make that absorption process
a success.
Among the factors that
will determine the success or
failure of this historic oppor-
tunity are politics, bu-
reaucratic competence, hu-
manitarianism and fund-
raising.
The financial cost of Soviet
Jewish emigration will be
enormous. The United
Jewish Appeal is about to
launch a campaign to raise
$350 million over the next
five years to help pay for the
Israeli absorption. Are
American Jews prepared to
dig into their pockets that
deeply?
Judging from the success,
or lack of it, of Passage To
Freedom, there is room for
great skepticism. Passage To
Freedom was the national
emergency effort that ended
December 31, and sought to
raise $75 million for Soviet
Jewish resettlement. As of
December 29, the campaign
had raised $49.5 million in
pledges and had collected
about $19 million in cash.
Billed as a one-time
emergency campaign,
Passage To Freedom fell far
short of its goal. Yet now
UJA is going back out to
that same audience and ask-
ing for another $70 million a
year for the next five years.
Some say that Passage To
Freedom is not an accurate
gauge of American Jewry's
willingness to contribute
towards resettlement, that
the campaign was conceived
of and launched quickly and
without proper planning.
They add that there was
much ambivalence as to
whether the money was go-
ing to resettle Soviet Jews
here in America or in Israel,
and that now that it is clear
that the majority of
emigrants will be going to
Israel, there will be greater
enthusiasm among
American Jews to help pay
for resettlement.
But others fear that
American Jews, while sym-
pathetic to this new cam-
paign, will want to first en-
sure that current services
provided at home for them-
selves and their family —
care for the elderly, educa-
tional programs for
youngsters — will be main-
tained before they give to
"others."
What has been missing
from the discussion of Soviet
Jewish resettlement has
been a sufficient sense of
urgency.
A number of observers are
deeply concerned that the
Kremlin's gates of emigra-
tion may swing shut as
quickly as they opened. If we
really believed that this
could happen, we would
surely be acting differently.
We would describe our
efforts more in terms of res-
cue than resettlement. We
would emphasize that a
negative by-product of
glasnost has been an in-
crease in anti-Semitism in
the USSR, now that nation-
alists have more freedom to
express themselves. We
would indicate that with the
USSR unraveling politically
and economically, it is the
Jews who will be
scapegoated and who who
need to flee while they can.
And UJA would have al-
ready launched its new Ex-
odus campaign rather than
just pave the way for it.
Even if we succeed in
lighting a spark under
American Jews and have
them lining up to contribute
to the cause, we are faced
with Israel's political and
bureaucratic quagmire in
spending the funds for ab-
sorption.
In fairness to the govern-
ment in Jerusalem, which is
being accused of not pro-
viding sufficient housing for
the newcomers, it must be
pointed out that any Israeli
official who would have ap-
proved of funding to launch
housing projects for tens of
thousands of Soviet Jews as
recently as six months ago
would have been carried off
in a straitjacket. The
numbers just weren't there,
and suddenly they are.
Now there is talk of at
least 250,000 Soviet Jews
coming to Israel in the next
five years, maybe twice that
number, maybe far more.
And while Israelis are
pleased with the prospect of
increased aliyah and greater
numbers of Jews arriving to
Continued on Page 20
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