PURELY COMMENTARY
The Haven
Continued from Page 2
language in a decree re-
quiring that "pogromists
and persons inciting to
pogroms be outlawed?'
Later, in a historic address
broadcast to the Russian
people, Lenin cried:
"Shame on those who for-
ment hatred toward the
Jews."
President Gorbachev,
glasnost's great advocate
has repeatedly insisted
that he draws his inspira-
tion from Lenin. He could
take a leaf from his men-
tor's book by now forceful-
ly expressing humane con-
cern. It could even prove
helpful to his pogrom of
perestroika. Certainly, he
must be aware that his
enemies on the right have
no hesitancy in exploiting
anti-Semitism in their at-
tempts to turn back the
clock.
The already indicated con-
tinuity of Russian anti-
Jewish bias again explains
the urgent pleadings of Rus-
sian Jews for exit visas to
seek havens of escape. There
is, it is sad to admit, the
deplorable slowness with
which that craving for Israel
has finally begun to
accelerate.
The referred to continuity is
a matter of inerasable history.
The prevaling bigotries have
deep roots. Now they seem to
be more apparent and on the
surface of the Communist
ground for which Lenin had
proposed treating anti-
Semitism as a state crime but
which is, instead, treated as
Communist philosophy.
It is important for the Jew,
for the historian, for all
Jewish communal func-
tionaries to read the ex-
planatory references to this
factor in the USSR in a very
N.Y. Times
important
analysis in the Jan. 28 Sun-
day Magazine. It was headlin-
ed "Russian Nationalists
Yearning for an Iron Hand,"
by Bill Keller, chief of the
Times' Moscow Bureau. His
entire study of ethnic pro-
blems in the USSR is of great
value in consideration of
world conditions involving
the Gorbachev rulership. The
anti-Jewish prejudices are ex-
posed by Keller in this portion
of his study of the current
Russian conditions:
The crude caricature of
the Russian, of course,
leaves much unexplained.
The greatness of Russian
literature and music, the
moral courage of an
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
or an Andrei D. Sakharov,
or even the work ethic of a
Gorbachev do not fit neat-
ly into this Russian
44
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1990
stereotype. But it also has
elments of truth, and one is
the Russian inclination to
blame someone else. Self-
pity is the life juice of Rus-
sian patriotism. In their
self-pity, the Russian na-
tionalists look for culprits
and they usually find the
scapegoats of history: the
Jews.
Russian nationalists
never tire of reciting the
names of Jews who played
critical roles in the
Bolshevik Revolution and
in Stalin's terror. In Rus-
sian nationalist
demonology, the belief that
Lenin had a Jewish grand-
father, that Jews (who had
suffered heavy persecution
under the czar)
predominated in the
Bolshevik Party, and of
course, that Marxism itself
was the eponymous pro-
duct of a German Jew,
make the Jews as a race
responsible for the inter-
ruption of Russian history.
That Jews were
themselves cruelly vic-
timized in Stalin's purges is
overshadowed by the fact
that Lazar M. Kaganovich,
a Jew, helped mastermind
the violence. Some Russian
nationalists, in fact, are in-
clined to exonerate Stalin
on the fantastic grounds
that he was manipulated
by the Jews around him.
It is not just the weird
para-military order,
Pamyat, that is obsessed by
the Jews. In conversations
with educated, cultured
Russians who would never
be caught dead wearing a
black T-shirt, in the pages
of official magazines and
newspapers favored by the
nationalists, and in
debates at the Russian
Writers' Union, "the
Jewish question" looms
large. And with the coming
of glasnost, discussion of it
has become much less
inhibited.
With the explanation of the
menacing Russian condition
goes the necessary emphasis
on the responsibilities to pro-
vide all the means necessary
for the exodus of the hundreds
of thousands of our fellow
Jews from the Russian infer-
no. The appeals for the large
funds necessary to settle
them in Israel should not
need much explaining. It is a
matter of saving lives and the
duties are apparent.
There is the added duty to
reduce the earlier experiences
when it was a matter of buy-
ing lives in the East Euro-
pean countries where the in-
humanities were cruel and
barbarities ruled as elements
in the Holocaust.
The Romanian memories
have revived the agonies to
which our people were sub-
jected. There are other facts
not to be forgotten. Two pro-
minent journalists joined in
writing an important expose
on the subject under the title
"Buying Romania's Jew: How
Israel ransomed 120,000 peo-
ple from Ceaucescu" by Yossi
Melman and Dan Raviv
which appered in the
Washington Post Jan 14. It
was not Romania alone that
was involved when human
lives were purchased. The
Melman-Raviv article con-
tains this horrifying
revelation:
In return for Jewish
emigration from Poland
and Czechoslovakia, Israel
bought Czechoslovak arms
and Polish machine tools.
But in Bulgaria, Hungary
and Romania, Israel was
forced to pay pure ransom.
The price for a Bulgarian
Jew ranged between $50
Self-pity is the life-
juice of Russian
patriotism. In their
self-pity, the
Russian
nationalists look
for culprits and
they usually find
the sacpegoats of
history: the Jews.
and $350. Hungary had the
nerve to demand $1,000 a
head, and got it. "The
Romanians also demanded
their share," noted a senior
Israeli government official
in a document in the state
archives in Jerusalem. The
Romanians were paid $100
per Jewish soul, and up
until 1952 they allowed
300,000 Jews to emigrate.
Such massive immigra-
tion stopped in 1952. In
Iraq and Yemen, there
simply were no more Jews.
Pre-Ceausescu Romania
and the other communist
countries imposed strict,
Stalinist emigration bans.
Prime Minister David Ben-
Gurion ordered a shake-up
of Israel's intelligence corn-
munity, dissolving Aliyah
Bet and putting the newly
formed Mossad in charge
of "underground activities
in order to make contact
with Jews and bring them
to Israel," in the words of a
special memo in the
archives.
Israel's relations with the
Soviet bloc deteriorated as
the Jewish state increas-
ingly adopted a pro-
Western foreign policy. The
Israelis feared that anti-
Semitism would grow,
especially in the Soviet
Union where there were
millions of Jews. There was
a need for a special and
secret agency to deal with
the problem.
Shaul Avigur, the former
head of Aliyah Bet, set up
a new unit to focus on
Jewish immigration from
Eastern Europe. Those few
who knew about his
organization called it simp-
ly "the Liaison Bureau";
the KGB and the other
communist secret services
considered Avigur's people
to be spies. One of the most
senior among them was
Shaike Dan, the bagman in
Romania .. .
Dan continued to operate
in Eastern Europe and
won Ceausescu's agree-
ment to resume the exodus
of Romanian Jewry.
Ceausescu had already
decided, as part of his stub-
born independence from
Moscow, to make Romania
the only Warsaw Pact na-
tion not to break
diplomatic relations with
Israel after the Six Day
War of 1967.
Of 150,000 Jews then in
Romania, more than
120,000 were permitted to
move to Israel over the
next 22 years. They became
Israel's second largest
ethnic community, out-
numbered only by the
Moroccans.
In return, Ceausescu
received cash from Dan.
The Israeli agent paid ac-
cording to the emigrants'
professional skills. Doctors
and engineers were the
most expensive. It is
estimated that Israel paid
around $60 million in cash
to the Romanians, at least
half of which is believed to
have gone to Ceausescu,
his wife and children.
The two authors, Yossi
Melmen, an Israeli journalist
now a Nieman Fellow at Har-
vard, and Dan Raviv, London-
based CBS news correspon-
dent, have authored a book on
Israeli intelligence. Every Spy
A Prince is certain to prove
enriching in the recollections
necessary about the suffer-
ings of East European Jews
and their rescue.
Hungary is another of the
vital areas that needs explor-
ing over developing condi-
tions. Some of the occurrences
there are described in a
Washington Post article from
Budapest by correspondent
Glenn Frankel, who states in
part:
The roots of the con-
troversy run deep in
Hungary's past. Before
World War II, Hungary's
800,000 Jews were among
the most educated, affluent
and assimilated in Europe.
About 600,000 were killed
during the war, many of
them in its last months
when Adolf Eichmann and
his team of German of-
ficers dispatched most of
Budapest's Jews to exter-
mination camps with help
from local officials.
After the Red Army
swept into the country,
Joseph Stalin installed a
regime that included in
some key positions Com-
munists of Jewish origin
who had spent the war in
exile in Moscow. Many sur-
viving Jews left for
Palestine after the war, and
20,000 more fled after
Moscow crushed the 1956
uprising.
.
Those who remained
came to an uneasy
understanding with their
Communist rulers. They
were allowed to worship in
peace and maintain their
institutions, including the
Dohany Street synagogue,
which is Europe's largest,
20 other houses of worship,
a high school, a museum
and Eastern Europe's sole
rabbinical seminary. Anti-
Semitism was officially
discouraged, even pun-
ished. But Jews were re-
quired to stay out of
politics, keep a low profile
and avoid any contact with
Israel.
"You hear a lot of it these
days in government
ministries — that Jews are
not loyal Hungarians, they
they can't be trusted, they
they always stick together
and take the best jobs,"
said a Western diplomat.
"It's not the old-style, 1930s
fascist anti-Semitism; it's
an appeal to nationalistic,
Christian chauvinism that
has a degree of anti-
Semitism attached.
The combined analyses of
threatening conditions create
an inferno that beckons Jews
into the available Israel
haven that is the homeland
created by the Zionist
idealism. The menacing
threats are mounting and the
obligations to assist in assur-
ing the possibilities grow
with them. There must be no
reduction in commitments to
guarantee realization of the
historic ideal that goes with
the duties evolving upon
world Jewry, the American
Jewish communities being
chiefly responsible for
cooperation in fulfillment. ❑