TIME Magazine 1971: The Harsh Plight of the Soviet Jews

The World: The Harsh Plight of the Soviet Jews
TIME MAGAZINE
Monday, Jan. 25, 1971

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Under Stalin, Russia's age-old anti-Semitism resurfaced. Later it was compounded by the Kremlin's strong pro-Arab policy, which has cast Israel and Jews elsewhere in the role of enemies. This development has only intensified the cruel dilemma that has confronted the Soviet Jew for years. Soviet policy is against all religions, but the Jew is discouraged to a far greater degree than either the Christian or Moslem from trying to practice his faith.

In all of the Soviet Union, there are only about 60 synagogues and a dozen or so ordained rabbis. At the same time, the Soviet Jew cannot shed his identity and become a fully assimilated Russian even if he wants to. No matter where he was born, he is always listed as a Jew in the domestic passport that all Soviet citizens must carry. Yet the Jew lacks the privileges that other Soviet ethnic groups enjoy. Other nationalities, such as the Ukrainians and Armenians, have their own provinces where they can speak their language and exercise a degree of cultural autonomy. The Jew is forbidden his own schools, and he cannot learn Hebrew or Yiddish in the public schools; they simply are not taught.

Since the 1940s, the Hebrew and Yiddish theater has been almost completely closed down. The only Yiddish periodical that is allowed to be published is a monthly journal edited by a party hack. The so-called Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan, which Stalin set up as a showplace in Siberia, has only 30,000 Jews in a population of 163,000.

The Soviet Jew is also handicapped by a strict quota system in universities and higher training schools. Jews may make up only 3% of the total, and while that figure is twice as high as the Jewish percentage of the Soviet population, it is nonetheless impossible for many highly qualified young Jews to receive higher education.

Dr. Arye Lev-Ran, who left Russia in 1967 and now lives in Israel, writes: "In buses and trains, and in queues outside stores, [the Soviet Jew] constantly hears the words zhid [yid] and A brashka [Abie], and overhears how crafty Jews grab up everything and are the cause of all shortages.

There is probably not a single Jew in the Soviet Union who has not heard a drunkard voice his regret that Hitler did not finish off all the Jews."

The situation has grown worse because of the recent international tension. Many older Jews are being discharged from their jobs Young Jews are finding it more difficult than ever to get into universities or to get suitable jobs later. Some young Jews have gone to Siberia voluntarily in order to study at less crowded universities there.

Police surveillance and harassment are on the rise, as evidenced by the raids on 50 Jewish homes in scattered communities following the arrest of the alleged hijackers in Leningrad last June.

The present wave of abuse began shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967. Because the swift defeat of Moscow's Arab allies by Israel made Soviet foreign policy appear inept, the Kremlin needed a scapegoat.

Soviet propagandists blamed a worldwide conspiracy of Zionists backed by neo-Nazis and U.S. imperialists. Authorities began publishing books and pamphlets portraying Jews as vile drunks, rapists and drug pushers. In Love and Hate, Author Ivan Shevtsov has the Jewish villain kill his mother to gain his inheritance.

The Soviet press also berates the Jews for their "God-chosen-ness" and argues that "Judaism and Zionism educate the Jews in the spirit of contempt and even hatred for other people."

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