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1947 W. 12 Mile Rd. • Berkley
New York (JTA) —
Mikhail Gorbachev, whose
resignation sounded the
death knell of the 74-year-
old Soviet Union, will be re-
membered as the man who
dramatically improved the
lot of Soviet Jews, both those
he allowed to leave and
those who remained behind.
For it was Mr. Gorbachev
who thrust open wide the
gates of Soviet Jewish
emigration and allowed
freedom of religious practice
for the first time in the athe-
ist nation's history.
When Mr. Gorbachev
entered office in March
1985, some 11,000 Jews
were counted as refuseniks,
and more than a score of
prisoners of conscience lan-
guished in prisons and labor
camps for the crimes of try-
ing to emigrate or teach
Hebrew.
The first omens of the Gor-
bachev era were not good for
Jews. The already paltry
emigration figure of 1,140
for 1985 slid even more
frighteningly low, to 914, in
1986. Soviet Jewry activists
in the West at first feared
Mr. Gorbachev would be
even worse than his reform-
resistant predecessors.
Then the numbers of Jews
allowed to leave began to
grow, reaching 8,155 in
1987, swelling to 18,965 in
1988, then surging to 71,217
in 1989 and 186,815 in 1990.
Few Soviet Jewry activists
will ever forget the day of
Feb. 11, 1986, when the
prison gates swung open and
nine-year refusenik Anatoly
Shcharansky took his first
steps toward freedom.
He was soon followed by
other long-term refuseniks,
such as Vladimir and Maria
Slepak, Ida Nudel and Yosef
Begun.
Emigration reforms were
eventually codified in a long-
delayed law passed by the
Supreme Soviet last spring.
This led to the lifting of U.S.
trade sanctions against the
Soviet Union, mandated by
the 1974 Jackson-Vanik
Amendment.
So profound were the
changes Mr. Gorbachev
enacted in the realms of
emigration and religious
freedom, that not even the
most hard- line critics of the
Kremlin's treatment of Jews
could dismiss the Soviet
leader's deeds.
Mr. Gorbachev also re-
versed the Soviet Union's
longstanding animosity
toward Israel, culminating
in the resumption of full dip-
lomatic ties with the Jewish
state in October.
Mr. Gorbachev "will go
down in history as the man
who let my people go," said
one strong admirer, Rabbi
Arthur Schneier, president
of the ecumenical Appeal of
Conscience Foundation.
Rabbi Schneier presented
an award to Mr. Gorbachev,
the Appeal of Conscience's
first Man of History Award,
when the Soviet leader was
in Washington in June 1990
for a summit meeting with
President Bush.
"Not only did Gorbachev
remove all restrictions im-
posed by previous Soviet
regimes against Jewish
emigration and Jewish re-
ligious expression, he was
the first leader of the USSR
Emigration reforms
were eventually
codified in a long
delayed law
passed by the
Supreme Soviet
last spring.
to recognize and publicly
state that religious believers
were valued and valuable
citizens of the Soviet
Union," Rabbi Schneier said
in a statement last week.
Even the most ardent
critics in the Soviet Jewry
camp were lauding Mr. Gor-
bachev's legacy.
Lynn Singer, executive di-
rector of the Long Island
Committee for Soviet Jewry,
described Mr. Gorbachev as
"a pragmatic politician, who
understood" that allowing
Jews to emigrate "opened
new vistas" for his country.
His pragmatism led him to
respond positively to
criticism, she said. "Much of
what happened from 1985
until even yesterday was the
result of Gorbachev's re-
sponse to the West," she
said. "He did in five and a
half years to six years what
it took decades for us to try
to do."
The stalwart Student
Struggle for Soviet Jewry,
perhaps the toughest critic
of the Soviet Union, remark-
ed that even "though Gor-
bachev was late in breaking
out of the human rights
gate," the "positive changes
he ultimately initiated
would have been un-
thinkable to us in the Soviet
human rights advocacy
movement a decade ago."