!World
now at the
Russia Changes from page A23
to emigrate from his native Ukraine,
chose to stay.
Ironically his father has wanted to
immigrate to Israel and Zissels now
has many relatives there. Still he is
fully satisfied with his life and activi-
ties in Ukraine in spite of a recent
spike of xenophobia and anti-Semitic
attacks, and he has no plans to leave.
Zissels leads the Association
of Jewish Organizations and
Communities of Ukraine, a nationwide
umbrella group based in Kiev, and
serves on the board of the European
Jewish Congress.
Aware of his vital role within the
community, Zissels sees his mission as
developing the Jewish community of
Ukraine, which he says "will become
stable in a generation:'
"We have to restructure ourselves
because what we were doing more
than 20 years ago is no longer suitable
today," he says.
Motya Chlenov fondly recalls the
cramped apartments full of friends on
holidays and the annual street parties
outside Moscow's Choral Synagogue
on Simchat Torah, where thousands
once gathered in defiance of the gen-
eral ban on Jewish meetings.
"They all got their exit visas and
they all left," he says, with a touch
of bitterness. "In 1992, I went to the
Choral Synagogue for Simchat Torah
and there was nobody there because
they had all gone."
His father, who described himself as
a "very secular Jew," seems ambivalent
about developments since the fall of
communism.
Role Of Religion
Mikhail Chlenov is clearly overjoyed
at the outpouring of Jewish cultural
life, but when the talk turns to the
predominance of Orthodox Judaism
in Russia today, much of which is
imported from abroad, he grows
slightly agitated.
"Well, I am a bit disappointed that
the dominant religious pattern which
is imposed on the Russian Jews," he
says. "But I can certainly find positive
traits in this development, too."
Motya Chlenov has decided to stay
in Russia because of what it offers him
that Israel or Europe, where he lived
for three years, cannot.
"I see a lot of more opportunities
here for me he says. "Yes, this country
is becoming less comfortable for liv-
ing, not just because of the political
reasons but because of traffic and
expensive living." He says he knows
both New York and London, and
Moscow has "a lot of the same bad
marks and less good marks."
Still, his decision is an outgrowth of
much of the work done by his father's
generation to make the Russian envi-
ronment more welcoming, not only
for Jews but for all the citizens of the
former Soviet Union.
Not everyone, even in his own fam-
ily, agrees with Motya's assessment,
however. His twin brother immigrated
to the United States in 1997; his sister
moved to Jerusalem the same year.
And while so much of the work
here has been done by people like
Mikhail Chlenov who stayed, some
former refuseniks who left still remain
active here, too. One example is Uli
Kosharovski, an Israeli who was in
Moscow recently as part of a delega-
tion to the World Congress of Russian
Jewry.
Kosharovski's soft eyes grow large
with incredulity when he is asked if he
had ever considered returning to live
in his native Russia.
"Oh no," he laughs, "never. Look, I
didn't run from Russia. I just wanted
to be Israeli." I
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A25