Behind the Headlines: Special Soviet Resettlement Campaign Will Be Test of Jewish Philanthorpy

As any successful fund-raiser knows, Jews give best when it comes from their “kishkes,” or guts, rather than from their heads.

A recent example is the emotional outpouring that marked the 1984 Operation Moses drive, when Jews contributed $60 million on behalf of Israel-bound Ethiopian Jews.

But a different mood marks the beginning of the United Jewish Appeal’s $75 million “Passage to Freedom” campaign on behalf of Soviet Jewish emigrants.

According to UJA leaders who discussed the new campaign at a news conference here Monday, the driving force behind the campaign is cool pragmatism rather than philanthropic zeal.

The reason lies in the unprecedented nature of the Soviet Jewish exodus. The “Passage to Freedom” campaign is designed to relieve the financial burden on Jewish agencies helping to resettle an influx of Soviet Jews that could reach 40,000 this year.

Fund-raising missions are being planned, speakers are being booked, and April has been designated as “Passage to Freedom” month. Communities will be asked to conduct fund-raising phone-a-thons during the intermediate days of Passover.

The efforts are aimed at tapping compassion for Soviet Jews, which reached a high point in December 1987, when 200,000 American Jews descended on Washington to rally for their Soviet brethren’s freedom.

UJA leaders speak emotionally of the historic responsibility of settling the new immigrants and the uncertainty of the Soviet Union’s relaxed emigration policies.

THE DROP-OUT PROBLEM

But an irony tempers their enthusiasm: The Soviet Jewry movement was based on Zionism and its beneficiaries usually leave the Soviet Union with Israeli visas. Yet some 90 percent of recent emigrants have chosen to live in the United States rather than Israel.

Israelis are frustrated by the phenomenon they call “dropping out,” and some blame the Americans for enticing Soviets with a host of social services.

American Jewish leaders sympathize with the Israelis but defend their actions. “I think it is fair to say that the overwhelming consensus of American Jewish organizations would wish that all Soviet Jews would go to the State of Israel,” UJA President Stanley Horowitz said Monday.

“However, what is an appropriate response — once the determination is made — to those who will not got to Israel?” he asked. “The American Jewish community is dedicated to the idea of responding to fellow Jews.”

Horowitz said he has been telling Israeli leaders that the purpose of the special campaign is to prevent a repeat of 1980 and 1981, the years immediately following the exodus of some 59,000 Jews from the Soviet Union.

“The UJA lost a great deal of money in 1980-81, as federations used for local needs money that might have gone to the UJA. We’re helping Israel to avoid that problem,” said Horowitz.

The UJA raises its money in partnership with the local federations, who ultimately decide how much of the year’s campaign will go to the UJA and how much to local needs. The “Passage to Freedom” campaign is being conducted above and beyond the $720 million-plus that UJA and the federations raise jointly each year.

BAILING OUT THE ‘AFFECTED SEVEN’

Ambivalence is expressed in other ways as well. Approximately 80 percent of the emigrants are settling in seven communities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and the North Shore communities of Massachusetts.

At a meeting here last week of representatives of 35 of the 42 largest Jewish federations, some expressed concern that their communities are having to carry the burden of what have come to be known as the “affected seven.”

“There is some concern, but I think it will work itself out through discussions at the committee level,” said Marvin Lender, the New Haven, Conn., investor who chairs the special campaign.

The mechanism for working out details is a “monitoring” committee coordinated by the Council of Jewish Federations. The committee has representation from all of the agencies affected by the Soviet emigration.

They include the federations, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, UJA and its major beneficiaries: the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

The committee already has determined “community quotas,” or the amount federations are expected to raise on behalf of the campaign.

The quota will be based on how much an individual federation contributed to last year’s general campaign — the higher the percentage, the higher the quota, according to Lender.

Lender said federation leaders at last week’s meeting “accepted the quota we assigned them and made personal contributions.” He said that UJA national vice chairmen already had contributed $1 million to the campaign.

The 1989 special campaign thus appears to be well on its way. But what about the future? If Jews continue to flow out of the Soviet Union, will the special campaign then become a yearly event?

“We thought about that a lot,” said Lender, who added he hopes that the doors of the Soviet Union will remain open. “But right now we’re dealing with the realities of 1989. We have to deal with what is now.”