-weimmuitow.

Reality is slowly entering the
system.
Once six-pointed stars were
censored from children's car-
toons. Today, Jewish
newspapers with magen
Davids and Israeli flags are
available at sidewalk
newsstands. Still, the USSR
is an abnormal place to live
for Jew and non-Jew alike. A
new Jewish American recent-
ly observed, "In the U.S., peo-
ple struggle not to eat; in
Russia, people fight over
food."
At Moscow's McDonald's,
Pizza Hut, or Baskin Robbins,
day after day, hour after hour,
a line of hundreds, sometimes
thousands, wait for the
privilege of spending their
average monthly salary on a
meal of American junk food.
On the 4th of July, I visited
Vladimir Volynsk, the town
in the western Ukraine from
where my father had to flee
during World War II, where
his entire family was
eradicated.
There are hardly any Jews
left; little remains of the
Jewish community's original
homes. They have been
replaced with regulation
Soviet box-like apartments.
The Jewish cemetery is a
park. A community of 25,000
Jews has been erased — a
tragic pattern that is
replicated everywhere in the
region.
The Ukraine was the heart
of the Pale of Settlement, the
only area where Jews in the
Romanov Empire were allow-
ed to live. It was the cradle of
many of the most important
aspects of Jewish life, religion
and culture for centuries. It
was also the center of in-
numerable tragedies: pro-
groms, massacres, blood
libels, of the endless list of
anti-Semitic oppressions in
which Ukrainians reveled.
Jews were forcibly alienated
from the land.
Today, Jews young and old
can return to these awful
places with the advantages
that the West can bestow.
Their Soviet hosts cater to
their requests. They come and
go unhindered, bringing
whatever Judaic materials
they like. They witness a
massive exodus; they see com-
munity building and Jewish
learning, all as a vast empire
disintegrates.
The Ukrainian nationalist
movement, Rukh, eagerly
cultivates Jews (banners in
Odessa have proclaimed,
"Jews do not leave. There can-
not be a Ukraine without
Jews!") But now Ukrainians
find themselves alienated
from their radioactive land.
Tragedy has become
triumph. ❑

THIS

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