A high-ranking State Department official speaking here called the re-emergence of popular anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union a “perverse consequence of glasnost,” Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of openness.
Raymond Seitz, assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs, said that with the “dismal” economic situation in the Soviet Union, it seems inevitable that “some people at some time will seek out a scapegoat.”
Nevertheless, he said, it is in the U.S. interest that Gorbachev’s program of perestroika, or restructuring, continue.
Seitz made his remarks at a Jan. 25 meeting of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Also addressing the JCRC gathering was Michael Schneider, executive vice president of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Seitz said that President Bush would to put forward a human rights agenda at the superpower summit in June that would include asking for resolution of the remaining refusenik cases.
He said that “progress has been made and continues to be made” to free those who continue to be denied permission to emigrate.
“We are on the threshold of a new order in Europe,” Seitz told his listeners. “It is possible that we are now coming to the end of a long European story of tension, divisiveness and confrontation.”
When asked about German reunification, Seitz said that while he understands concerns on the part of some, he believes it is the will of the German people to reunify and that the Western nations cannot stand in their way.
OUTREACH GROUPS MUST AVOID TURF WARS
Trying to prevent reunification, he said, would likely backfire and “hasten what it is we want to avoid” — German ultranationalism fed by a sense of isolation.
He said he believes the Germans are committed to going about reunification in “a cautious serious, mature, measured” manner.
Schneider of the Joint Distribution Committee discussed the situation of Jews in Eastern Europe served by his agency.
Glasnost and perestroika, he said, “have turned the Jewish world topsy-turvy.”
Schneider said there is now an unprecedented opportunity for his agency and other Jewish organizations to develop Jewish communal life in the Soviet Union.
“It is imperative that all the Jewish organizations put turf and turf considerations aside,” he said. By the time the various groups sort out who should be responsible for various aspects of outreach to communities in Eastern Europe, he cautioned, “the opportunity could be lost.”
Schneider stressed that with all the excitement about the unprecedented emigration of Soviet Jews, it should not be forgotten that there will be Jews remaining in the Soviet Union for a substantial period of time.
He said even if Jews leave the Soviet Union at a rate of 100,000 per year, the annual birthrate will almost totally replenish that number.
“For the foreseeable future,” he said, “there will be a Jewish population in the Soviet Union, for better or for worse.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
