Former Moscow Jewish Activist Assesses Prospects for Change in Soviet Emigration Policy

The leaders of the Soviet Union now recognize that there can be no rapprochement with the United States unless they restore the process of emigration for Jews seeking to join their families in Israel.

This assessment was made at a news conference here by Eliahu Essas, one of the most prominent Jewish activists in Moscow until he was permitted to emigrate to Israel with his family in January after waiting 13 years. Essas, 40, a mathematician and physicist, arrived in New York last Thursday on a three-week American tour for the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.

In evaluating the prospects for a change in Soviet policy to permit resumption of emigration on a scale similar to that of 1979, when 51,000 Jews were granted exit visas, Essas said two conditions had to be met:

“(1) Jews in the free world must demonstrate that they have not forgotten their Jewish brothers and sisters in the USSR, and (2) There must be no Cold War, confrontationist tactics, which poison the air.”

CALL FOR NEW EAST-WEST FRAMEWORK

He added: “A new framework of East-West relations must be created within which the leaders of the USSR can fin a way to resolve the ‘Jewish question I believe they are ready to move on this issue, but they will do so only if public opinion in the West continues to demand a solution, and only if tensions between Moscow and Washington are eased.

“There can be no progress toward human rights in the Soviet Union–including the right of repatriation to Israel–in an atmosphere of tension and Cold War.”

Essas noted that Soviet leaders no longer claimed that all Jews who wished to leave the USSR had already been given permission to emigrate. “In my judgment the Kremlin now understands that Jews still want to leave and that they are supported in this demand by the free world,” he said. “I am also persuaded that they know a genuine rapprochement with Washington cannot take place without renewed repatriation of Soviet Jews to Israel.”

JEWISH RELIGIOUS REVIVAL

Essas, a self-taught Hebrew scholar who became widely known in the Soviet Union as one of the first activists to publicly advocate the right of Soviet Jews to learn Hebrew and practice their religion openly, first requested permission to emigrate in 1973.

His application was denied and his home was raided several times, his books on Jewish religion and culture were confiscated and he was placed briefly under house arrest. He became an observant Jew and leader of the Jewish religious movement in Moscow.

Despite constant pressure by an “officially and efficiently atheistic Soviet regime, ” he said, “there has been a powerful resurgence of Jewish religious life in the USSR. Today there are shochtim (ritual slaughterers) and sofrim (scribes) trained in self-study groups that, while not forbidden by Soviet law, are not allowed either.”

Many were trained by Essas himself, beginning in the early 1970’s, after he underwent a spiritual transformation. Raised in what he called “a Zionist-oriented but not formally observant” family, Essas–then teaching mathematics at a Moscow university–began an intense philosophical search to find his Jewish roots. He found the answer, he said, “in Torah–the age-old, immutable principles of Jewish living.”

He was not alone, Essas told the news conference here last Friday. “I know personally thousands of Jews who have become observant, who obey the laws of the Torah, who attend synagogue regularly. Fifteen years ago, losif Begun and I were the only Jews under the age of 65 who attended Purim services in Moscow. Last year there were hundreds of young Jews reading the Scroll of Esther in the synagogue and celebrating the victory of the Jews of Persia over their oppressors.” Begun, one of the most prominent Hebrew teachers in the USSR, is now serving a Soviet prison term.