Recent Russian actions against the Jewish Agency for Israel have provoked a flurry of diplomatic activity to sort out whether there is more afoot than bureaucratic machinations, as the Russians maintain, or whether a real threat to Jewish emigration looms.
At the same time, U.S. Jewish organizations involved with emigration are on alert, but have heeded a call by the Israeli government to allow Israeli- Russian diplomacy on the matter to take its course.
Jewish officials here are quietly warning that any high-profile protest against the actions could back fire by playing into the hands of Russian politicians anxious to exploit nationalist sentiment in advance of next month’s president elections.
Last month, Russian authorities revoked the operating license of the Jewish Agency, the quasi-governmental body responsible for bringing hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel in recent years.
Spearheaded by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, organizational leaders here say it is critical that the community remain informed and ready to act if necessary.
But, they say it is essential for everyone to act in unison to avoid exacerbating Russian reaction with mixed public messages.
“The stakes are very high,” said Mark Levin, executive director of the National Conference.
“We are continuing to not call for a broad-based community action,” he said. “We believe at this time the most appropriate thing our community can do is continue to express our concern and be supportive of the diplomatic initiatives that are underway.”
Said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: “There is a clear consensus that the matter is being handled” privately through diplomatic and organizational channels and “this is not the time for a public campaign.”
Late last week Jewish Agency Chairman Avraham Burg was in New York consulting with Jewish leaders.
Burg had come “to share information and prepare contingencies for worst-case scenarios,” he said, alluding to the possibility of a crackdown on emigration.
But, during an interview in the agency office here, he said the full intention of the Russian authorities will be decipherable only after June 16, the day the elections are slated to be held.
Said Burg. “Between now and then will be a very sensitive” time, during which the Jewish Agency strategy will be “not to provoke them.”
Until then, the agency plans to conduct “business as usual, and where they come and say `stop,’ we stop,” he said.
Last week, Russian officials broke up an agency-sponsored immigration seminar in the Russian town of Pyatigorsk.
No other similar incidents have been reported since then and Burg said there has been no evidence of any change in policy governing exit visas.
For his part, Levin, of the National Conference, warned against complacency.
“When the agency responsible for the preparation and transport” of emigrants is having difficulties operating, he said, the issue must be resolved quickly or it could “cause long-term problems.”
Until last week’s incident in Pyatigorsk, Jewish Agency officials had said they accepted Russian assurances that the cancellation of its license was a technicality. It was an explanation other experts were willing to buy in light of constantly changing rules and regulations in a chaotic country.
The argument was buttressed by the fact that other foreign organizations also were notified that their operating permits had expired and had to be reissued under new protocols.
At the same time, virtually everyone involved with the issue privately acknowledged the possibility that some larger political factors were at work.
For one, they said, this could be yet another in a series of Russian muscle- flexing in the international arena as government leaders seek to boost their public standing.
After the seminar incident, Burg announced that he had written to Russian Justice Minister Valentin Kovalyov that “the Jewish Agency operates in dozens of countries throughout the world and has never been subject to such treatment.”
Sources say the Israeli government was dismayed that agency officials had intensified their public protest.
The Israeli government issued a statement, saying that it is “dealing with the issue on a bilateral level and at the moment” it “sees no need for further initiatives.”
It also expressed the hope that “any action” taken by the U.S. Jewish community would be “taken in coordination with the Israeli government.”
Meanwhile, Russian diplomats are still telling their Israeli counterparts that the revocation of the agency’s accreditation was a “technical problem connected to new laws for non-profit organizations,” according to a highly placed Israeli source.
For their part, U.S. State Department officials said they have raised their concerns about the agency’s status “at senior levels of the Russian government,” but that it is “very difficult” to determine “whether this is motivated by domestic politics or other concerns.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
