Jews in Russia Suspected of Sympathy Toward United States; Considered “unreliable”

Details on the Soviet policy to climinate Jews from leading parts in the intellectual and political life of the U.S.S.R. are reported here in the Christian Science Monitor by its former Moscow correspondent, Edmund Stevens. The uncensored report was sent by Mr. Stevens from Rome.

The correspondent emphasizes that Jews in the Soviet Union were penalized for voicing their affection and admiration for America in 1946. He reports that the head of a department in a large Soviet educational institution told him he had received a directive to hire no more Jewish teachers and to dismiss those already on his staff whenever a convenient pretext presented itself.

Pointing out that the new Communist Party instruction to deny Jews jobs in educational and certain governmental institutions “was not a mere reversion to the old-time pre-revolutionary anti-Semitism of which a strong residue remained,” the correspondent says that the present campaign was not directed against the Jews as a race. The Communists, he states, attack the Jews in Soviet Russia as “a cultural group whose conduct was branded unreliable–and consequently subject to blacklisting.”

Reviewing the position of the Jews in the U.S.S.R. before World War II when the Soviet Government actively combatted anti-Semitism and admitted Jews to positions of trust and authority, the correspondent reports; “The war and its aftermath wrought profound changes in the status and outlook of the Jews. Nazi persecution rekindled Jewish consciousness and Jewish solidarity. At the same time, Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda not only sank roots in the invaded Ukraine and Byelorussia, which had the largest prewar Jewish populations, but also found response behind the Soviet lines. During the hasty evacuation of Moscow in October, 1941, when the Germans were almost at the gates, rumors spread that the Jews had grabbed all the vehicles and made off with vast treasures, leaving the rest of the population in the lurch.”

EXPERIENCES CHANGE MENTALITY OF SOVIET JEWRY LOOK TOWARD WEST AND ISRAEL

“After the war, Jews who came back from evacuation sometimes found that in their absence their houses had been taken over by Gentiles, together with their belongings,” the correspondent continues. “Nor were the usurpers always gracious about making restitution.Moreover, in the invaded areas returned Jews were often as strangers in their own land. They came home to find their relatives and friends wiped out, the roots of their existence gone.

“The cumulative impact of these experiences,” Mr. Stevens says, “transformed the Soviet Citizen of Jewish origin into a Jew of Soviet citizenship–a Jew first and foremost, in his own eyes and those of his neighbors, with a background and ties that marked him apart. Hence the tremendous and unexpected enthusiasm of Soviet Jewry for the state of Israel. But even before that event, the changed Jewish outlook was expressed in an increasingly detached attitude toward the Soviet surroundings, and, above all, in an urge for closer contact and understanding with the West.

“In the summer of 1946, an American rabbi, member of a group of United States clergymen which had collected funds for Russian war relief, visited the Moscow synagogue. The local Jews gave him an enthusiastic and highly emotional welcome, voicing their affection and admiration for America and gratitude for American aid, which still was fresh in everyone’s memory. Thereafter the party signaled its first stern warnings against the Jewish tendency to ‘grovel to the West’ — in strict confidence,” the correspondent reports.

“With the advent of Israel, Soviet Jews saw, or thought they saw, the promise of a new and better life,” the report states. “This expectation was strengthened when the Soviet Government promptly recognized the new state, even though Communist policy had always vigorously opposed Zionism and had ruthlessly suppressed all Zionist organizations. With the state of Israel an accomplished fact, however, Soviet policymakers saw the chance to gain a foothold in the Middle East. Accordingly, Israel received a favorable press, and party lectures were organized on the subject.

“After one such lecture in Moscow, a man in the audience got up and asked the speaker how Jews wishing to emigrate to Israel should make their applications. Instead of answering, the speaker launched a violent tirade, saying that such a question was unworthy of a loyal Soviet citizen, who should prize his birthright too much even to think of wanting to emigrate, and that the very idea was treasonable. Others in the audience rallied to the questioner’s support: Had not Soviet citizens of Polish and Czech extraction been allowed to leave under repatriation agreements with the respective countries? Why not a similar agreement with Israel?

“When members of the Israeli Legation, headed by Mrs. Golda Myerson, reached Moscow, they received a tremendous spontaneous ovation from the local Jews, first at the synagogus, then under the windows of their Metropol Hotel rooms–something without precedent in Soviet history. Immediately the legation was flooded with inquiries about how to get to Israel. Somehow, the rumor got started that arrangements were under way for a wholesale population transfer of Soviet Jews to Israel. Jews by the thousands began liquidating their affairs and packing their bags for the impending exodus. But no new Moses appeared to lead them. The Iron Curtain did not part to let them pass,” the correspondent concludes.