Six Soviet Jews Writing in Izvestia Declare Israel is the Historic Motherland

The full text of a letter by six Soviet Jews to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, in response to an anti-Israeli article, was provided to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today by Sir Barnett Janner, legislator and communal leader. The heated reply scores the authors, identified as “Berenstein and Fridel,” for questioning the historical status of Israel as a Jewish homeland, and underlines the “indubitable right” of Soviet Jews to emigrate there. The letter, in response to an article “To Whose Tune Do the Zionists Dance?,” has been referred to but not previously made public. The signers, who detailed their addresses, were Vitaly Svechinsky, Dora Kolyaditskaya, Mark Elbaum, Tina Brodetskaya, Lev Freidin and Bluma Diskina. Their letter, addressed to the article’s authors, stated: “You write about Israel that it is ‘so to say’ the historical motherland of the Jews. Do you know of any other historical motherland of the Jews which is not ‘so to say?’ Perhaps you wish to say that the Jews, unlike other peoples, have no historical motherland, or at least should not have one…”

The writers further challenged Mr. Berenstein and Mr. Fridel: “You come out to speak in the name of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union–Are you able to read Peretz Markish. Leib Kvitko, Itik Feffer, David Bergelson? Do you know even one Jewish letter? Are you proud of the spiritual heritage of the Bible, the Maccabees, Bar Kochba, Yehuda Halevy. Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn. Chaim Nachman Bialik and Shimon Frug? If this is not your spiritual heritage, all that remains to you is the bare field of class struggle.” The letter notes that this “class struggle” is freely carried on in Israel by “the only legal Communist party in the entire Middle East,” which has representatives “sitting in the same Knesset which seems to have provoked you to write your article.” The six called on the Izvestia writers to “understand…that the right to leave any country is the lawful right of every person, and is nowhere regarded as ‘treachery’ or ‘betrayal'” outside the Soviet Union. “Do you hear, Berenstein and Fridel? What can you say to that?,” the writers asked.