Dr. Zand Says Protests in U.s., Abroad, Aided Him, Wife to Leave Soviet Union

Prof. Mikhail I. Zand, the 44-year-old Soviet Jewish scholar who was finally permitted to leave the Soviet Union for Israel in June after his exit visa was issued and almost immediately revoked in May, today stated, “I think that the public and private interventions of thousands of Americans and protests all over the world helped” him and his wife finally get permission to leave. Dr. Zand spoke at a press conference this morning after arriving in this country last night with his wife. He was brought to the U.S. to address the Zionist Organization of America convention in Pittsburgh this week-end. Estimating that there are tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Jews in Russia “now in their struggle for their right to leave for Israel,” he said, referring to the protests,” we ask you to continue in this way.” Introduced by Richard Masse, chairman of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry. Dr. Zand, who spoke in English, said that in Russia he held a prestigious position as a researcher at Moscow’s Institute of Oriental Studies, a division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. “I belonged to a privileged class in the Soviet Union,” he said, and was “recognized as one of the best experts in my field,” Persian, Tajik and Arabic literature. But, he went on, “I was a privileged slave amongst slaves. I had all that the Soviet citizen can have,” he said, but was “deprived of two simple things: human freedom and Jewish identification. I struggled and got permission after a long and bitter struggle to go to my old new land, Israel,” he said.

Speaking softly, Dr. Zand said the recent “political trials” of Jews is the “policy of hard liners” in the Soviet government, “and they failed in their policy because they couldn’t break us.” During the trials, he continued, the number of people asking for exit visas increased considerably. Dr. Zand distinguished between Soviet Jews struggling to leave for Israel and non-Jewish Soviet intellectuals who are part of the “so-called democratization movement.” They want to improve the Soviet system and stay in Russia, he said, whereas “we have nothing to do with the Soviet inner system. It’s not our task to improve the system.” He said that the Jews just “want the right to go to our land.” Russia, he said, “is not our motherland.” But, he added, the Soviet intellectuals are “our single supporters in the Soviet Union and we are thankful to them” for their support. Dr. Zand said the Six-Day War “played a big role” in the “national renaissance of Soviet Jews.” It provided an inspiration which encouraged Russian Jews “to struggle for the right to continue (their) Jewish life.” He said that Soviet Jews who intend to go to Israel must risk having “all bridges burned.” He said the authorities place artificial bureaucratic difficulties in the way of those applying to emigrate to Israel.

Dr. Zand said the exit visas cost the equivalent of the annual salary of an engineer or “a good, qualified factory worker. All Russian language broadcasts beamed to Russia from abroad are jammed, he said, except those of Kol Israel. He declined to speculate why the radio broadcasts from Israel were not blocked. Dr. Zand added that it “would be useful” if foreign broadcasts said “a little more about us.” Dr. Zand, who will join the faculty of the Hebrew University upon his return to Israel in a few weeks after a tour of the U.S., said “we do face difficulties upon our arrival in Israel.” He said the hardest task confronting the Russian Jewish emigre is changing “his mentality to accept (that) of a free man living in a free society.” Asked about reports that Oriental Jewish immigrants to Israel have complained that Russian Jews arriving there receive preferential treatment, Dr. Zand said he spoke to some of the Israeli Black Panthers and was told that they have “no objections” to Soviet aliya. The Russian-born scholar said the Soviet Jews do not want to get “the best conditions in Israel.” All they want, he said, is “to live with our people and all the hardships of such life.”