Special Interview Naum Alshansky Fears USSR Will Use Anti-zionism Measure to Cut off All Jewish Emig

Naum Alshansky, a former Soviet Jew who was a lieutenant-colonel in the Red Army, fears that the Soviet Union will use the anti-Zionist resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to out off all Jewish emigration to Israel. He said the Soviets might now say that they cannot allow people to go to a “racist” country.

Alshansky, who during 26 years of service in the Soviet army received 13 medals including the Order of Red Banner, one of the Soviet Union’s highest awards, said the Soviet government was behind the resolution labeling Zionism as racism, not the Arabs. He said the USSR could not introduce the resolution since it was guilty itself of racist practices toward the various minorities within its borders.

Interviewed in Yiddish at the office of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, Alshansky urged Jews outside the Soviet Union, who he said have done much good, to increase their demonstrations and other efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews. He said American Jewish organizations should convince the United States not to supply the USSR with wheat and other goods until all Jews are allowed to leave.

In addition, Alshansky, who immigrated to Israel from Minsk last March after a four-year struggle, said Jews should write letters to their coreligionists in the Soviet Union as a means of building up the morale of Soviet Jews. He said while many of the letters will be confiscated, those that get through will show Soviet Jews that they are not alone.

Asked about the contention of some Jewish leaders that in addition to promoting aliya for Soviet Jews there should also be pressure to allow those Jews who wish to remain in the USSR to be permitted to nourish and retain their Jewish culture, Alshansky declared; “This is not possible …If you want to be a Jew, you have to go to Israel.”

The 58-year-old former colonel said this was also true of Jews who lived in the United States and other countries, but at least in these countries assimilation was a natural process. He said in the Soviet Union it was forced.

ANTI-ZIONISM CLOAKS ANTI-SEMITISM

Anti-Semitism, cloaked as anti-Zionism, is promoted by the Soviet government and the Communist Party, Alshansky maintained. He said this started after World War II when the Soviet Union turned to nationalism and chauvinism to win the support of the people, many of whom had become anti-Communist as a result of seeing other countries during the war. “Whatever is wrong it is the Jew that is blamed, “he said.

Alshansky charged that this anti-Jewish propaganda has resulted in at least five Jews being murdered in his city of Minsk. He said those apprehended for two murders were called crazy and the unsolved murders are being blamed on Zionists by the authorities; Alshansky said it is a miracle that young Soviet Jews have turned to Zionism with the assault on Jewish culture in the USSR. He said in Minsk, which has about 50,000 Jews, there are no Yiddish periodicals or schools and the synagogue seats only about 40 people, causing people to stand in the street during Jewish holidays.

JEWISH IDENTITY NURTURED

However, he said the anti-Semitic policy of the government has nurtured Jewish Identity. He said the Soviet Communist Party has done more to increase Zionism among Soviet Jews than has Zionist Ideology.

As for himself, he said his Zionism was nurtured as a child in cheder by a rabbi who also spoke of Eretz Yisrael. He said he and his wife, Klara, and their two children, applied to emigrate in April, 1971. “I wanted to be a Jew and I couldn’t be a Jew in Russia.” He said he also wanted to do something for the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, and “I can only do this in Israel.”

After applying for a visa Alshansky was stripped of his rank and denied his officer’s pension. He and his friends, Capt, Genadoy Kipnis and Col. Efim Davidovich, were harassed and threatened with a trial which was cancelled after outcries from the West, Kipnis was allowed to emigrate. Before Alshansky and his family left this year, he and Davidovich, who is still in the USSR, were kept under constant surveillance. In March, 1974, Alshansky formally renounced his citizenship and returned his war medals to the Supreme Soviet Presidium in Minsk.

After immigrating to Israel, the Alshanskys studied Hebrew at an ulpan in Jerusalem. He is working for Metz, an Israeli appliance manufacturer, and his wife, a doctor, is working for an Israeli doctor until she learns enough Hebrew to be on her own. His son is working and his daughter is studying at Tel Aviv University.

IN ISRAEL, COMPLAINTS ARE POSSIBLE

Alshansky said that life in Israel is materially harder than it was in the USSR, although actually better than he expected. He noted that the bureaucracy is worse in Israel than in the Soviet Union, but in Israel he can at least complain and demonstrate against the bureaucracy. But he stressed that he did not come to Israel for material things but because “I wanted a land, a people, a Jewish life.”

He said Israel needs zealots as immigrants. He noted that in Israel one has to work and if one is willing to do that, a good life is possible, Alshansky, who is in the United States for a lecture tour until Dec. 20, said he is already homesick for Israel and can’t wait to return.