At the beginning of 1970, the Jewish world was beginning to ripen for uniting efforts in the struggle for Soviet Jewry. The Israeli Liaison Office[1] played an active behind-the-scenes role in this process.

“….the Jewish leadership of Western Europe, North and South America, Australia and Israel [decided] to convene a world conference to mobilize a global response to the ominous developments in the Soviet Union. Such a conference was urged in a resolution adopted by a gathering of Jewish leaders from seventeen European countries, held in Paris in April 1970…. It was agreed that such a conference would be convened by national groups such as the AJCSJ [American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry] and international bodies such as the World Jewish Congress, the World Zionist Organization, and B’nai Brith International.”[2]

A secretariat was formed to prepare for the conference that included representatives of the sponsor countries ─ Israel, the U.S., Great Britain, and France. As a first step the secretariat declared September 20, 1970 ─ the date of the opening of the UN General Assembly session ─ a day of universal solidarity with Soviet Jewry. On that day large demonstrations in support of Soviet Jewry were organized in London, Paris, New York, Toronto, Sydney, and other large cities.

At the preparatory session of the secretariat in November 1970, considerable doubts were expressed concerning the potential effectiveness of such a forum and whether it could attract serious press interest. The difficulty was noted of assembling in one place people who held irreconcilable positions on a whole series of political, ideological, and social issues. The Jewish world, however, reacted to the death sentences that were handed down in the Leningrad hijacking trial with a storm of indignation that did not subside after the sentences were reduced. Moreover, in connection with the “hijacking case,” the authorities continued to arrest Zionist activists and to harass an ever widening circle of people who at times had a very distant relationship to the movement. Each day brought new reports of searches, the confiscation of samizdat material, interrogations, threats, work dismissals, and malicious anti-Zionist and antisemitic propaganda. These actions reinforced the wave of protests in the West and significantly speeded up the process of unifying forces.

The first worldwide Jewish conference devoted exclusively to the issue of Soviet Jewry was convened in Brussels from February 23 to 25, 1971, two months after the first Leningrad hijacking trial. More than 1500 people representing practically all western Jewish communities from 38 countries met in Brussels.[3] Participants in the conference included the politicians David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, and Aryeh Eliav, Israeli Chief Rabbi Yaakov Kaplan, the writers and intellectuals Saul Bellow, Avraham Shlonsky, and Eli Wiesel, former U.S. Supreme Court Judge Arthur Goldberg, and Lord Grenville Janner, a deputy of the British parliament. Soviet Jewry was represented by recent arrivals from the Soviet Union ─ Vitalii Svechinskii and Mendel Gordin from Moscow, Grisha Feigin from Riga, and Karina Shur from Leningrad.[4]

It was by no means the first international effort dedicated to the situation of Soviet Jewry. “The Socialist International, the Council of Europe and other legal and parliamentary bodies had prepared reports on the problem and made representations to the Soviet authorities. Brussels was, however, the first international Jewish gathering to be held on the subject. Although this underlined the significance of the event for Jews (not since the inaugural Zionist Congress of 1896 had representatives of all Jewish communities convened at an international gathering) there were misgivings that it might restrict general public interest”[5]

In the tense atmosphere surrounding the issue of Soviet Jewry, the conference was supposed to demonstrate Jewish solidarity to the world, seek practical measures for supporting Soviet Jews, and elaborate more effective methods of pressuring the Soviet government.

On the eve of the conference, the noticeably nervous Soviet authorities engaged in feverish diplomatic and propagandistic activity.

On January 25, 1971 Georgii Smirnov, deputy director of the Department of Propaganda of the CPSU Central Committee, sent a secret note requesting Central Committee permission for the publication of an item in the central newspaper Izvestiia that would state that the Soviet Union was not impeding the departure of Soviet citizens of Jewish nationality and that the fuss in the West represented the latest Zionist slander campaign.[6] Two days later, Ivan Udal’stov, chairman of the board of the Novosti press agency (APN), proposed in a secret report to the Central Committee:

 ─  to organize Jewish protests in the USSR against the actions of the organizers of the conference in Brussels;

 ─  to hold a round table of APN and the journal Sovetish Heymland on the status of Jews in the USSR, with the participation of representatives of the Soviet and foreign press;

 ─  to organize an open letter of individuals of Jewish origin to the editors of Belgian newspapers and to the press of other Western countries:

 ─  to send to Belgium the APN film We Were Born Here (on the life of Jews in the USSR);

 ─  to complete, quickly reprint and send to Soviet embassies and foreign APN representatives, for distribution abroad, especially Brussels, the brochure, “Soviet Jews: Myths and Reality”;

 ─  to prepare, in collaboration with the journal Sovetish Heymland and make available abroad, a series of presentations on the difficult status of working Jews in the U.S., Israel, France, and the FRG [West Germany], and on the failures of Zionist propaganda which is aimed at inciting antisemitism.[7]

 

Eight days before the start of the conference, the Soviet news agency TASS printed a statement by Iuri Kornilov in the typical Soviet propaganda style:

Ringleaders of the bellicose organizations operating in Western countries have chosen Brussels for yet another gathering … convened for the launching of another anti-Soviet provocation, the aim of which was not “the fate of Soviet Jews” but the hope of obtaining “people of Jewish nationality from the Soviet Union as cannon-fodder for the Israeli war machine.” ….Pravda threw the weight of government opinion into the attack with a violent diatribe. “The Soviet people,” it declared, “will never recognize the ‘right’ of the Zionist band, which has stained its reputation in particular by an alliance with the Nazis during the second world war and by brutal crimes in the occupied Arab territories, to speak on behalf of Soviet citizens of Jewish parentage. It is disgraceful that such ‘claims’ by Zionists find support in government circles in the USA, Belgium and other countries where Zionist storm troopers operate. Now Zionist organizations are hastily knocking together a ‘World Jewish Defense League’ and are preparing with might and main for an ‘international’ anti-Soviet witches Sabbath … designed to become the culmination of the wide anti-Soviet campaign which has been carried out in the last two years.”[8]

 In their efforts to disrupt the conference the Soviet pressured the Belgian government through diplomatic channels. Four days before the conference opening, Moscow Radio broadcast a direct warning to the Belgian government:

It is surprising that the Belgian authorities, notwithstanding earlier representations by the Soviet Ambassador, are taking no steps to prevent this candidly anti-Soviet undertaking. What is more, the organizers of this gathering, openly hostile to the Soviet Union, are being provided with the necessary facilities. One of the best premises in Brussels has been placed at their disposal. The provision of facilities for such purposes on Belgian territory cannot but arouse the indignation of Soviet men and women. There can be no justification for a campaign of slander and provocation. The attitude adopted by the Belgian side on this matter up to now is out of keeping with the character of Belgian-Soviet relations and conflicts with the efforts made by both sides in recent years to create an atmosphere of friendship and trust between the two countries. We trust the Belgian Government will give this statement its full consideration.[9]

 

On the eve of the conference, Soviet Ambassador Fedor Molochkov conveyed a serious warning to the Belgian foreign minister, Pierre Harmel, that said relations between the two countries could be seriously harmed if the conference were not canceled. Harmel replied that the traditions of Belgian democracy always permitted a broad spectrum of opinions and he saw no reason why this issue should in any way affect the relations between Brussels and Moscow.[10]

Under the auspices of the Soviet-Belgium Friendship Society a delegation of “state” Jews was sent to Brussels that included Samuil Zivs, General David Dragunskii, G. Kalish’ian, V. Peller, L.M. Vidiasova, and A.P. Sokolov.[11] Two press conferences were organized for the delegation: the first was held on February 19, two days before the opening of the conference and the second on March 1, a week after its conclusion.[12] Newspaper, radio, and television interviews were also arranged for them. The delegation members tried to prove that Soviet Jews were not discriminated against and had no desire to leave the Soviet Union.

As in the case of the Leningrad Trial, the regime lost its sense of measure and, to some degree, achieved the opposite of what it intended: instead of intimidating the hospitable Belgian hosts and conference guests, it provoked even greater activity. Seeing that the world press was not deceived by their clumsy attempts to undermine the conference, the Soviet authorities next tried to subvert the conference’s moral authority. Soviet efforts, however, fanned the flame of public interest. There were 225 journalists, including four Soviet correspondents from TASS, Novosti, Pravda, and Izvestiia that were accredited to the conference.

Many Zionist activists in the USSR, understanding the significance of the Brussels Conference, tried to transmit their messages and greetings, some of which made it across the Iron Curtain. “On the eve of the conference opening, an appeal was received from activists from Moscow and Orel. The Kharkov groups succeeded in phoning the secretariat of the conference early in the morning and conveying their message by telephone.”[13] Vladimir Slepak managed to report that on February 24 (the second day of the conference) a group of thirty Moscow Jews went to the reception room of the CPSU Central Committee and delivered an appeal to the CPSU congress (that was scheduled for the end of March) with a demand to permit all those who so desired to emigrate freely to Israel. The group sat in the reception room for an entire day until they were informed that they would receive an answer when the congress convened.[14]

The opening of the conference was impressive. World-renowned public and political figures sat on the presidium. Greetings from all over the world were read from the dais to the overflowing hall. Forceful and reasonably short speeches were delivered. A message from Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that was read noted that Soviet Jewry was undergoing a process of great national revival. The last speakers were activists from the Soviet Union who had arrived in Israel literally a few days before the start of the conference.[15]

Vilia, I heard that you were a delegate to the conference. Is that true? I asked Vitalii Svechinskii.[16]

What can you do…

Moreover, you spoke there.

Well, yes… I even spoke in Yiddish, believe it or not, he replied with a smile.

You spoke in Yiddish?

I learned a little something … In general I spoke in Russian; there was simultaneous translation. At the end I said a few sentences in Yiddish.

Have some memories remained clear or did everything get mixed up together from the abundance of new impressions?

It was exciting. I felt that something important was happening there. I felt pressured by the need to say everything correctly and comprehensibly. After all, I had arrived in Israel only on February 2, twenty days earlier…. Nehemiah Levanon said that I should go and speak.

How much time did you have?

There was no limitation. My speech boiled down to the following: This was the first time during the entire history of Jewish-Soviet relations that Soviet Jews found the courage and strength to get up and openly declare their allegiance to their historic motherland, Israel, that their national consciousness had become fired up, and that at this very time in the Soviet Union a war was going on ─ people were being arrested and interrogated. I said that it was necessary to show those who had joined the struggle that they were not alone. It was also necessary to show the Soviet authorities that they were not fighting one on one against the Jews because worldwide Jewry was standing with its brethren and would struggle with them. That’s what I said. At the end I was fired up and called for uniting all Jewish forces in the diaspora in order to show the Soviets what world Jewry represents.

Did you give an interview, Vilia?

Yes, that too. I said that we had learned from the experience of the Crimean Tatars and the human rights activists.[17] When the Soviet authorities saw that some group lacked worldwide support, they acted very quickly and resolutely. That’s how it was with the Tatars. They were not supported in the world at large, by either Muslims or Christians, and they were dealt with very harshly. The regime also dealt harshly with the democratic dissidents because their support in the West rested only on the signature of Bertrand Russell and a group of intellectuals, which was unpleasant but tolerable for the Soviets. A much larger force supported us. Jews in the West, thank G-d, possessed considerable influence in the power structures and in the media. I said that the Soviet regime was very sensitive about its image in the West; therefore, it was important to condemn its deeds at all international forums. “No matter how much force of spirit and will is displayed by Jewish activists ─ those who have already been arrested and those who will be arrested ─ their fate depends on you, gentlemen,” I said to them. “This time you must not let the Soviets make short shrift of them.”

And what about the other fellows?

They all were very excited… we were still completely “fresh.”

Did you participate in the work of the discussion groups?

Yes, we were completely busy for the entire three days.

Did you feel that there was understanding in the West of what was happening in the Soviet Union?

We were in such a state…we believed in the West, knew how keenly the authorities in the Soviet Union reacted to what was said in the West and how the KGB calculated the possible reaction from abroad. Thus, it was possible to do things in Moscow, for example, that simply could not be done in either Leningrad or Sverdlovsk. In Moscow we understood that we had a protective shield afforded us by the KGB itself, which scrupulously calculated what measures it could apply in Moscow. We knew, for instance, that the Moscow security service was dissatisfied with the Leningrad branch because the latter inflated the “Leningrad hijacking case” without considering the potential reaction and consequently it evoked a powerful wave of protests.

In your opinion, did Nehemiah Levanon understand the situation?

Yes, but at the same time he did not have complete freedom of action. He was subordinate to Golda. We met in Brussels with Roma Brakhtman, who had been accredited to the conference by Radio Liberty. He was like a brother to me; we were imprisoned in the same case, and he said to me, “You think that these American Jews will save Russian Jewry? In fact, it’s just the opposite; they are saving themselves as Jews. You helped them to unite; you helped them to sense who they are.” I had never thought of that; I was shocked. I later thought a lot about this ─ was he really right?

 

At that time, Roman Brakhtman, a reporter for Radio Liberty, had already been living eight years in America. His words sounded somewhat cynical but there was some truth to them. When information about the Holocaust began to seep into American public consciousness, many young Jews began to distance themselves from  Jewish communities, whose wisdom and moral values had been so weakly manifested during World War II. The struggle of Soviet Jews who were prepared to sacrifice their life and liberty for the right to be Jews provided a powerful moral stimulus to western Jews and gave them an opportunity to restore their authority, which had been shaken by their conduct during the Holocaust. The stars were properly aligned: the interests of Israel, western Jewry, and the aspirations of Soviet Jews coincided.

In preparing for the conference, the Liaison Bureau tried to attain a general consensus on the conference resolutions in order to prevent the proceedings from descending, as often occurs, into disputes about formulations. Nehemiah Levanon was also apprehensive about the speeches of independent Soviet Jewry activists who were critical of the establishment and its methods and of “extremists” among the recently arrived olim. He also disagreed with those who favored giving priority to the struggle for securing religious and cultural freedoms inside the Soviet Union.[18]

Levanon’s fears were nearly justified. On the second day of the conference Rabbi Meir Kahane arrived together with a former prisoner of Zion, Dov Shperling. It is worth noting that Kahane was very popular among activists in the Soviet Union. We regarded the Jewish Defense League’s protest demonstrations that included elements of violence as a legitimate counterweight to the harsh measures that the police and KGB used against the defenseless Jewish minority in the Soviet Union.

In the West, however, the Jewish establishment and the majority of independent public organizations considered Kahane’s methods absolutely unacceptable. Western Jews did not like violence and did not want to be equated with the militant rabbi. Several days before the conference, Kahane was arrested for an attempt to break through a police barrier in front of the Soviet mission in New York. Released at his lawyers’ request until sentencing, he immediately flew to Brussels.

When the guards in charge of maintaining order at the conference did not allow Kahane and his companions into the auditorium, he asked them to convey a request to the conference presidium to allow him to speak at the plenary session. The chairman of the presidium, who did not want to take responsibility for such a decision, decreed that Kahane would be allowed to speak only if the American delegation agreed to include him in their group. The Americans, apparently, did not agree and Kahane was asked to leave. He declared that in that case he would hold a press conference right there at the entrance to the building at which he would say everything that he wanted to say at the plenary session. The police, however, were already waiting at the exit. They took him to the police department and he was deported from the country the following day.

The delegates were agitated by the news of Kahane’s removal. Not all agreed with the opinion of the conference’s organizers. Menachem Begin in particular heatedly defended the right of each person to express his/her opinion, declaring indignantly, “Since when do Jews inform on their own people and facilitate their deportation?” “Passions were so fired up,” recalls Levanon, “that I began to worry about the fate of the conference. When Begin went into the hall after his speech and saw my worried look, he said, ‘Don’t despair, Nehemiah. This episode will be forgotten in time. History will remember the great conference that united the people for the struggle.”[19]

Indeed, the disturbances abated somewhat in time for the adoption of the Brussels program and the ceremonial closing of the conference, which subsequently justified the hopes it had inspired. The conference set goals; determined the direction for activity and the methods of conducting the struggle in the West; and it established an organ to coordinate the struggle of Jewish organizations and communities around the world.[20]

The Brussels Conference advocated a constant, tireless struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel and for their right to transmit their cultural and religious heritage to their children. The concluding Brussels Declaration of the conference stated:

We, the delegates of this Conference…solemnly declare our solidarity with our Jewish brothers in the Soviet Union…. [W]e are at one with them , totally identified with their heroic struggle for the safeguarding of their national identity and for their natural and inalienable right to return to their historic homeland, the land of Israel….

          Profoundly concerned for their fate and future, we denounce the policy pursued by the government of the Soviet Union of suppressing the historic Jewish cultural and religious heritage….To cut them off from the rest of the Jewish people, as the Soviet authorities are attempting to do, is a crime against humanity….

          We assembled in this Conference commit ourselves, by unceasing effort, to ensure that the plight of Soviet Jewry is kept before the conscience of the world until the justice of their cause prevails.

          We shall continue to mobilize the energies of all Jewish communities. We will work through the United Nations and other international bodies and through every agency of public opinion.

          We will not rest until the Jews of the Soviet Union are free to choose their own identity.[21]

 

The declaration ended with the words that the Biblical Moses addressed to the Egyptian Pharaoh: “Let My People Go!” ─ words that subsequently became the slogan of the entire movement on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

 “We were inspired,” recalled Glenn Richter, national coordinator of the organization “Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry” in an interview to the author. “The feeling remains even today, over thirty years after the conference. Meeting all those young people from various countries, especially from Europe and Israel who were completely dedicated to the Soviet Jewry struggle! It increased the forces and facilitated cooperation. The Brussels Conference was a turning point for the establishment as well. The Liaison Office subsequently encouraged the founding of organizations in support of Soviet Jewry in the U.S., Europe, and Israel.”

Soviet authorities well understood the conference’s mobilizing potential for Soviet Jews. As the memorandum of Aleksandr Yakovlev, deputy head of the Department of Propaganda of the CPSU Central Committee shows, however, the regime was even more concerned about quelling its international resonance:

            Secret

31.3.1971

CPSU Central Committee

[Yakovlev first reports on the implementation of the recommendations in Udal’stov’s report to the Central Committee.]

Throughout the Brussels Conference material was sent to many countries through APN channels unmasking this assemblage. The following items were effectively disseminated exposing the real face of several of the participants of the conference: the pamphlet, “The Official and Unofficial Service of Arthur Goldberg” and “The Zionist Münchausen (on the renegade G. Feigin).”

Publications from the foreign press were used for counterpropaganda purposes: a letter from 36 English Jews to The Guardian, a declaration of the Jewish community of Buenos Aires, an article from the Argentinean daily Tiempo, etc.

In March, through APN channels, a collection of letters of former Soviet citizens now living in Israel was distributed, “The Truth about the Situation of Immigrants in Israel,” and also reporters’ notes on a press conference held at the Chop border post by re-emigrants who had just returned to the USSR….

A range of materials was also published in the Soviet press. The central Soviet newspapers published a report on the round table, and Literaturnaya gazeta published a detailed report entitled “A Reproof of Zionist Slanderers.” On 18 February of this year, Central Television showed a thirty-minute film on this meeting. Presently, on the basis of materials from letters and press conferences, a special illustrated brochure is being prepared entitled “The Truth about the Situation of Immigrants in Israel.”[22]

 Soviet counterpropaganda revealed the regime’s weakness and nervousness, its sensitivity to international efforts, which activists in the USSR were quick to notice. They were encouraged even more by the feeling that they were not along in facing the totalitarian power because the Jewish world was behind them and was also prepared for an open struggle. The consequences were soon evident. After the Brussels conference, refuseniks intensified their activity and their ranks were filled by new people. Open protest letters were accompanied by mass visits to Soviet institutions, demonstrations, and hunger strikes. The activists also began to meet with politicians and public figures from the West.

On February 28, 1971, thirty people carried out a sit-down demonstration in the building of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. It was the first public demonstration against the refusals and the persecution of people who had applied for exit visas to Israel. In view of the many foreign correspondents present, the KGB was clearly hesitant about undertaking any punitive measures. The demonstrators, who included Meir Gelfond, Vladimir Slepak, Viktor Polskii, Boris Orlov, and Vladimir Rosenblum, were promised that a review of their cases would be expedited. Indeed, a few, including Meir Gelfond, whom many considered the organizer of the demonstration, soon received exit visas. The Muscovites open protest received broad coverage in the West and evoked a wave of demonstrations at Soviet institutions abroad.

The visit of twenty Riga Jews to local OVIR, without the presence of foreign correspondents, was less successful. One of the participants, Feiga Simakova, an invalid, was arrested for ten days and the others did not receive any promises.

On March 10, 146 Jews, 57 of whom were from Latvia, began a hunger strike in the reception room of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The Latvians were joined by 69 Jews from Lithuania and twenty from Moscow. The authorities sent several hundred policemen to the Presidium building who pushed away the western correspondents, insulted them, photographed them, and demanded that they leave. The next day information about this hunger strike appeared in many western publications.

On March 11, fifty Moscow Jews organized a demonstration in the reception room of the Ministry of the Interior, demanding exit visas to Israel. The ministry officials were patently upset and even somewhat frightened. After three hours of heated wrangling between the demonstrators and the ministry workers, Minister of the Interior Nikolai Shchelokov appeared before the demonstrators. After a short discussion he promised to review the cases of those present within ten days. His reply came even earlier but it did not satisfy the demonstrators. On March 17, eighty people arrived at the reception room of the CPSU municipal council demanding a more transparent process of reviewing their applications that would be in accordance with the law.

Three months later, the majority of those who participated in the various March demonstrations were already in Israel. Further activism snowballed.

“So, baffled by pressures inside and outside the USSR and the courageous determination of Soviet Jews to risk everything in order to break out of their strait-jackets, soon after the Brussels Conference — could it have been mere coincidence? — the Soviet Government began to half-open its doors. In the whole of 1970 only about a thousand Jews were allowed to leave for Israel. In the single month of March, 1971 the same number left. In April the total arriving in Israel had soared to 1,300. By the end of the year approximately 14,000 had gone.”[23]

The rise in the number of exit visas granted was accompanied by harsh measures aimed at reducing to a minimum the number of those willing to embark on this extremely dangerous path. The regime increased the amount of arrests, searches, and interrogations and it intensified anti-Zionist propaganda. These methods, however, could no longer halt the struggle of Soviet Jews. The character of the activists and leaders of the Jewish revival had been forged by preceding decades of humiliations, discrimination, and persecution.