In 1971 some of those who left the USSRon Israeli visas started changing their route in mid-journey and heading for Western countries, primarily the U.S.Those who immigrated to the West instead of Israelwere called “noshrim,” which in Hebrew means drop outs. At first, it was just a few families, but the numbers increased rapidly, and in 1976 equaled the number of olim, i.e., those who immigrated to Israel. In the following years, the noshrim became the dominant trend. The attitude toward the phenomenon of neshira, i.e., dropping out from the Israeli destination, evoked acute disagreements both in our Jewish activist ranks and in the Jewish world as a whole.

The majority of activists were quite tolerant of the first cases of neshira. Even then, however, many of us opposed the blatant violation of the conditions governing the exit visas for fear that it could harm the chances to leave of those who remained behind the Iron Curtain. Our concern for the fate of aliya mounted as the stream of noshrim swelled. The Israeli establishment shared this concern.

At first, no one thought about the possibility of changing route in mid-journey. One received an invitation from relatives inIsrael, submitted documents for an exit visa toIsrael, and was issued a visa forIsrael, meaning that one could go only toIsrael.

What impelled the Israeli leadership, which was trying so carefully to observe the formal requirements in order not to give theSoviet Uniona pretext to accuse the Israeli side of falsification, patently to violate this principle? What role did international Jewry play in arranging alternate destinations?

How did the neshira start? I asked Yakov Kedmi, former director of the Liaison Bureau (Lishkat Hakesher or simply Lishka).

It’s a long story. It began in 1971 when one of the major U.S. donors to the Jewish Agency asked workers in that organization to help reroute his relatives directly to the States without a stop in Israel. As it is customary in the West to respect people who donate money, the Jewish Agency workers, without much hesitation, turned to the Lishka, which decided that it was no particular problem so why not try to please a respected individual?

At the time, the HIAS and JOINT missions inVienna, which had dealt with the migration of the Jewish population at the time of World War II, were scheduled to close. In 1971 they received a few Jews fromCzechoslovakia, the majority of whom did not go toIsrael. Their work was completed and they had nothing more to do.

Two weeks before the closing, the Lishka asked them to reroute one family from the Soviet Union, the relatives of the rich donor. They did so and immediately asked to extend their stay in Vienna in case another family required the service, which is what happened. When the rumor spread that one family went directly to the States, first one, then another, and then several more families made the request…. Thus it all started because of stupidity and a lack of foresight. It was agreed that Jewish Agency representatives would be given the opportunity to explain to the noshrim why it was better for them to immigrate to Israel. The JOINT and HIAS, however, saw the stream of noshrim as a good way to obtain financing. Money came from the American government and the UJA. This meant budget allocations, staff, and so forth.

Israel could declare that this represented a threat to aliya.

So what? It’s an illusion to think that international Jewish organizations are guided only by Israeli interests. Not at all. When their interests coincide with Israeli ones, everything is fine, but when they don’t, their own interests dominate.[1]

As soon as the law-abiding Soviet Jews crossed the border of the Soviet Union, they found themselves in a completely different, free world, governed by laws that were unfamiliar to those who had grown up under totalitarianism. Corporate interests were often placed above national ones, and national interests were interpreted in different ways depending on one’s place of residence, the interests of leaders of Jewish organizations, and the composition of their personnel.

Graph of the departure of Soviet Jews. The solid line indicates the number of olim and the dotted line─the number of noshrim.

 

DespiteIsrael’s rich experience in absorbing new immigrants from various countries, problems appeared that affected the aliya from theSoviet Union. Among the most serious were a poor understanding of the mentality of the new olim and the inability to find satisfactory professional work for a significant number of highly-qualified specialists.

In his unpublished novel Pharaoh’s Shepherds, Finkelshtein wrote about Levanon’s attitude: “‘What do we need the Brodskys for?’ said Levanon, having in mind one of them, Yosif.[2] ‘They’ll come, they’ll start to make trouble; no matter how you treat them, and they’ll leave anyhow. Those are not our goods….’”[3]

“I think,” Finkelstein told me, “that Nehemiah Levanon made a serious mistake when he gave the “green light” to those people, thus opening the breech to neshira. He didn’t want a certain type of people to come to Israel. He himself reached an agreement with the Americans; it was his own doing. He thought that a few would go… dissidents and their like. He didn’t expect neshira to reach such a scale. He often regretted paving Soviet Jews’ way to America and frequently tried to correct the mistake.”[4]

It should be noted that freedom of emigration did not exist in theSoviet Union. After a lengthy domestic struggle and international pressure, limited emigration was permitted in the framework of repatriation. This meant that Soviet citizens could immigrate only to their national state, in the case of the Jews, toIsraeland the ethnic Germans, toGermany. In addition, there was another restriction: repatriation was allowed only in the context of family reunification. One could thus explain to the domestic population and to the world that people were striving to rejoin their families, and there simply were no others who wished to leave the “socialist paradise.” In order to apply for an exit visa, one had to present a notarized invitation from a close relative inIsraeland explain in writing when and under what circumstances that relative arrived inIsrael. The ethnic Germans had to follow a similar procedure for an exit visa toGermany. In these circumstances, a demonstrative disregard for the emigration rules offered the regime a convenient pretext to halt emigration at any time and start harassing those who applied for visas under false pretenses.

In the case of Germany, agreements were signed that specified the procedure for submitting documents and set an annual quota on the number leaving. Because the Soviet Union had severed diplomatic relations with Israelafter the Six-Day War, there were no such formal arrangements regulating Jewish emigration. It was thus determined by the Soviet Union’s degree of interest in détente and Western technologies and the extent of pressure from the free world. In order to prevent the number of refuseniks from reaching a dangerous level, the emigration quota was regulated to a considerable degree at the stage of submitting documents by the imposition of difficulties in assembling and submitting documents, by the quantity and reasons given for rejections, or by, in essence, illegal measures such as the introduction of a tax on education (or even the threat of introducing it). The required number of people was thus weeded out in the earlier stages, and the majority of those who overcame the obstacles managed to leave. The fact that until the end of the 1970s the number of refusenik families did not exceed two thousand gave certain activists the feeling that quotas did not really exist. The respected English journal Insight, however, cites a report “Immigration to Israel from the USSR,” a special supplement of the 1977 Israel Yearbook on Human Rights compiled by Z. Alexander:

“We have no exact information of the number of exit permits granted by the Soviet Government, but we know how many visas for Israel were issued by the Dutch Embassy in Moscow and their figure should be virtually identical with the figure of Soviet exit permits.” An analysis of these establishes beyond doubt that the Soviet authorities operate a definite quota, regulating both the level of emigration and the allocation of exit permits to different republics, as the following table shows:[5]

	1974	1975	1976	Jan-Sept. 1977
RSFSR	3,611	3,169	3,128	2,308
Ukraine	6,277	5,116	6,469	5,469
Byelorussia	289	309	299	297
Baltic States		749	634	678

 

Do you think the quota was an illusion or real? I asked Yakov Kedmi.

Of course it was not an illusion. The quota always existed but it was not severe. In discussions between Kissinger and Gromyko, the quota issue was always raised. The Germans had a quota… but they did not make a fuss.

If there was a quota, then the noshrim took the place of olim in the stream of emigration.

Of course. The problem was that one couldn’t know for sure in advance who would go where, and there was little one could do on the basis of suppositions.

Do you think that Soviet leaders were bothered by the fact that so many people blatantly violated the emigration rules?

I don’t think so. They even utilized it for their interests to suggest that the talk about national revival, a national movement, and a historic homeland were just fairy tales. It was simply a matter of emigration. The Soviets called it “emigration via the Israeli channel.” TheU.S.andIsraelwere in agreement on this form. The KGB would use it for its own operative goals. On the whole, this situation was more often in accord with the Soviet regime’s interests than against them.

The newly created Jewish state, encircled by enemies, needed an influx of fresh forces. Aliya was suited to that task. Neshira, on the other hand, in the eyes of many activists, threatened the very existence of aliya. Many Zionists thus regarded immigration to the prosperous West using Israeli visas as a betrayal of Jewish national interests. These feelings were intensified among activists because they did not see the noshrim in the ranks of those fighting and demonstrating for the right to emigrate.

Many indignant activists wrote letters to Israeland the West suggesting various options that, on the one hand, would not exclude freedom of choice but, on the other, would minimize the ensuing threats to aliya. Suggestions were made to strengthen the Zionist foundation of the movement, allocate funds to the nationally-oriented efforts, and create a suitable moral atmosphere in Western Jewish circles, [added back] halt the extension of financial aid to noshrim in the Dutch embassy in Moscow, and close the HIAS offices at European transit points.

My own argument from those years as recorded by Enid Wurtman and Connie Smukler can be found in the report of their trip to theSoviet Unionin October 1976:

 The flow of letters coming from the West about the warm acceptance for newcomers, compared with the same amount of letters coming from Israelabout the difficult adjustment and acceptance period, affects their decision. It is difficult for little Israelto compete with rich, developed Americain matters of the standard reception of newcomers. Does it serve our national goals, however, to strengthen Americawith Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union? … It would be very important, if possible, to direct this money [spent on noshrim] to Israel ─ to absorb people into Israel ─ to change the balance ─ to change the whole atmosphere here.”[6]

 In 1976, a group of activists turned to various Jewish leaders and also to the leadership of Joint and HIAS with a letter to which I was one of the signatories. The appeal emphasized:

 It is the dropout problem that has become the factor on which the scale of aliya, its structure and its very existence, will depend…. We think that the increase in the number of dropouts might lead to the discontinuation of Jewish emigration by the Soviet authorities.

We know about the noble activities of HIAS and other similar philanthropic organizations in the past. … And today, HIAS contributes to many aspects of Jewish life. However, the existence of the HIAS center for Soviet Jews in Rome only adds to the confusion of many Jews—those who have already left and those who intend to do so—by giving them false confidence of a guarantee for absorption and by inducing them to make a decision which, in the end, serves neither their own interests nor those of the Jewish people.

We call on Jewish organizational and communal leaders to adopt a responsible attitude to a problem on whose solution the future of aliya from the USSRwill depend.[7]

The letter was signed by Vladimir Lazaris and Yuli Kosharovskii from Moscow, Vladimir Sverdlin and Arkadii Rabinov from Leningrad, Lassal Kaminskii from Riga, Vladimir Frenkel from Vilnius, Mikhail Mager from Vinnitsa, Sheinis from Kiev, and many others.

A letter signed by Leonid Kovner (Gorky), Vladimir Prestin, Mark Azbel, and Dina and Yosef Beilin (Moscow), and Vladimir Drot (Vilnius) suggested improving the quality of Israeli broadcasts and the work of Israel’s information services. Emphasizing that the material aid given the noshrim was significantly higher than what Israel was able to provide, thus creating an additional economic stimulus for immigration to the U.S., the letter also suggested correcting that situation.[8]

Given the large number of people desirous of leaving the USSR, many activists considered that the Jewish world did not have the right to risk the future of those wanting to immigrate to Israelfor the sake of greater convenience in bringing noshrim to the West.

With regard to neshira, however, activists and refuseniks did not always share the same opinion. Some of the activists, including even aliya leaders, adopted a human rights stance that placed freedom of choice above Zionist ideology. Professor Lerner, known for his restrained attitude toward cooperation with democratic human rights activists, considered that “the choice of a country of residence must be the personal affair of each individual because only freedom of choice guarantees freedom of behavior.”[9] Vladimir Slepak also favored freedom in choosing one’s country of residence.

The Zionists who participated in the human rights movement would, of course, have preferred that people go to Israel, but as defenders of human rights they were not prepared to restrict the noshrim’s right to freedom of choice. Natan Shcharansky, with his independent nature and keen mind, clearly expressed his own position regarding neshira.

Natan, what were your disagreements with the Liason Bureau on neshira?

If you recall, the Lishka proposed that we all sign a letter demanding that HIAS be closed.

My opposition to the departure of noshrim on Israeli visas was not based on anyone’s request.

You didn’t understand me. I didn’t say that those who signed were puppets of the Lishka. I simply am saying that the Lishka actively lobbied for that position in America and, therefore, it also tried to mobilize activists in the Soviet Union. Of course, Nehemiah Levanon did not personally phone everyone, but I know that it was very important to them, and they haven’t changed their minds to this very day. If you remember, a group of people composed a different letter that I signed along with Lunts, Meiman, Slepak, and Lerner, I think. We wrote that we all planned to go only to Israel and were Zionists but we considered that the Jewish state should not close any doors to Jews. We wanted everyone to go to Israel for positive reasons, and so forth. I must say that it turned people in the Lishka against me and others, and insofar as I was the one who physically transmitted this letter to journalists….

Look, it was 1975 and there was the feeling that the regime was terribly angry at the activists after the Jackson-Vanik Amendment and was thirsting for revenge. Neshira in that form meant that invitations from Israel were false, the applications were filed under false pretenses, and there was no reunification of families or repatriation. All that could serve as a pretext for reprisals and the cessation of aliya.

In all the disputes─and I participated in them daily─I said it was nonsense, that it didn’t make any difference to theSoviet Unionwhere people went. When there would be truly free emigration and everyone could go to where he or she wanted, then, naturally, let them go directly. But insofar asIsraelwas the sole way that a person could get out and a person who got out was better than one who remained, then it was permissible. Some said, “Better that they should stay in theSoviet Union.”

It wasn’t about that. According to another point of view, it was all right for them to leave via the Israeli channel but they should pass through Israel so as not to create such a wave of distrust against those who remained.

Fine, but then the process should have been organized accordingly.

You didn’t object to that?

Not only did I not object. In 1988, when more or less free emigration began, Yakov Kedmi came to me and said: “Will you object if we now try to reach an agreement with the Americans?” I replied: “Now, when it’s possible to submit an application for an exit visa from Russiato America, what discussions are needed? Let them not lie, let them apply for where they want to go.” If Israelhad organized it in such a way that the noshrim were able to maintain the status of refugees, then─of course. What, indeed, didIsrael say? Because they won’t have the status of refugees afterIsrael, we’ll force them to come to us. I thought that it wasn’t necessary to force anyone.

For you the problem was that in passing through Israel they lost their refugee status?

They wouldn’t accept them into Americaafter they had been in Israelbecause they took only refugees. If Israelhad said, “We reached an agreement with the Americans: you can decide in the course of a few months after your arrival in Israelwhether you want to move to America”, that would have been a different matter. … When Israel, however, began to fight against neshira and explain to American Jews that they should halt the exodus of Soviet Jews, in my opinion, they put themselves in an idiotic position. First of all, it undermined the morale of a considerable number of those who fought for us inAmerica. They were not such big Zionists and were struggling for the freedom of Jews. They said: “Our grandparents and fathers came here and we won’t let them come here?”

In the American milieu there was no option to speak otherwise. But, indeed, the idea of national statehood was at the basis of our movement.

Back in 1980, Menachem Begin said that he was not prepared to appeal to the Americans to bar entry to Soviet Jews.

 

The different attitudes toward neshira did, indeed, represent a genuine ideological conflict. Whereas the Zionist movement strove for the freedom of immigration to Israel, the democratic one supported freedom of emigration in general. From the democrats’ point of view, neshira was even desirable because it expanded the framework of the struggle for the general democratization of the country. The question of its possible detriment to the Zionist movement itself was not seriously considered. Instead, people made the basically unsubstantiated claim that the Soviet regime didn’t care to which destination people immigrated. Although the regime could display indifference abroad, inside the country, it often made us feel that was not the case. The press used the issue to its advantage and it was raised in OVIR offices and interrogations.

There was a division of opinion in the West. The Israel establishment spoke out against neshira but, unsure of how to oppose it, committed a series of mistakes that objectively served to increase neshira. The Jewish establishment in the rest of the world supported the Liason Office’s position but not so openly or publicly because it contradicted the principles of the democratic milieu in which it operated. The problem of neshira “raised a profound philosophical debate around two versions of the future of the Jewish people. … The primary participants would divide into two basic camps: the Israel advocates and the ‘freedom of choice’ proponents.”[10]

The majority of activists in the West supported neshira, perceiving the Zionist movement in the Soviet Union as part of the general human rights struggle. Insofar as the right to emigrate and freedom of movement implies the right to go where ever one pleases, not necessarily to Israel, and American activists themselves did not plan to move to Israel, they viewed neshira as a normal component of the movement. If one adds to this the remaining trauma of national consciousness among American Jewry from theU.S. government’s refusal to take in Jewish refugees fromGermany on the eve of World War II, then it is understandable that there was no chance of convincing grassroots American organizations to support the Zionist position. They would say: “Each Jew who leaves theSoviet Union is, first of all, a life saved for the Jewish people.”

Indeed, given the Western view of freedom of movement as a self-evident right, the very concept of neshira was not completely comprehensible. In English there is no word for a permit to leave a country, only the word “visa” for entry to another one, and nowadays, even such visas are not always required.

A Jew’s movement from country to country is his private business. Zionism in the West does not mean that all Jews must move toIsrael, and it is only one of various ideological trends in the Jewish world.

In 1973, neshira became a serious issue. What was your attitude toward this phenomenon? I asked Jerry Goodman, general director of the National Conference.

At first we rather aggressively supported Lishkat hekesher’s position. It was one of those issues about which we had serious disagreements with the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. The majority of activists with whom we maintained contact in the Soviet Union, over ninety percent, opposed neshira because they thought that it threatened the aliya movement.

In addition to moral considerations, that was the primary reason. We considered that those who wanted to reach the U.S. should forge that path on their own.

We adopted the same position. We were not against Jews’ moving toAmerica. My parents came here. But we thought that it ought to be a separate struggle. Those people should strive to obtain the right to go directly to the American embassy to submit their applications.

The duality of the Americans’ own position, in which they were free to move to Israelat any time but preferred life in the comfortable diaspora, determined their attitude to a considerable degree. “How can we advise anyone to go to Israelwhen we don’t do so ourselves?” we heard often from our American guests in the USSR. I was surprised that even some who arrived as representatives of Jewish organizations sincerely invited refuseniks to move to the U.S. “In a candid meeting with the activists, Golda Meir explained that absorption of Soviet Jews in Israel was not the sole cause of neshira. Contact between North American or European activists and refuseniks entrenched relations and increased the likelihood of Soviet Jews’ choosing other countries.”[11]

Even when the figures for neshira represented eighty percent of all who left at the beginning of the 1980s, Western activists did not change their position. “‘Plummeting emigration figures and growing discrimination against Jews in the USSR were bad enough,’ they said, ‘without the Jews in the West preventing Soviet Jews from going to the country of their choice.’”[12]

Were you trying simply to save Soviet Jews or was it important to you that they went to Israel? I asked Wendy Eisen, author of the book Count Us In, one of the leaders of the Canadian organization “35” in Montreal and later chairman of the Soviet Jewry division of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

We were afraid that neshira would ruin the Jewish movement. Soviet Jews were fighting for the right to return to their historic homeland but an ever larger number of emigrants from the USSR were winding up in Chicago, Toronto, or Brighton Beach. We thought that the neshira could lead to the gates being closed, but somehow that didn’t happen.[13]

 

Stuart Wurtman, president from 1975 to 1977 of the largest independent Soviet Jewry organization in theU.S., the country-wide Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), made aliya toIsraelat the end of his term.

How did you personally relate to neshira and what was the attitude of your organization? I asked Stuart.

My personal feeling was that we got involved in order to help the survival of the Jewish people. I felt that there was a much better chance of becoming part of the Jewish people and staying Jewish in Israel. We already saw that some immigrants who came to the USfrom Russiawere very busy becoming Americans and finding good jobs; they didn’t get involved in the Jewish community and eventually disappeared as Jews. I very much favored aliya and opposed neshira. The Union didn’t necessarily have one policy. Leaders in various cities could make independent decisions. Some leaders who followed me believed in freedom of movement and that the Russian Jews should personally determine their destinations. While I was president, I explained to the Union membership why it wasn’t in the interests of refuseniks to go to the West as they might very well be sacrificing and jeopardizing future aliya. Although many members of UCSJ wanted to see Soviet Jews go to Israel, they still believed in freedom of movement.[14]

To the same degree that the Jewish state wanted the immigrants to go toIsrael, the non-Jewish West favored viewing them as refugees from theSoviet Union. With the fierce Cold War competition between the two socio-political systems that didn’t cease despite détente, the West preferred to regard the situation as stark proof that people were fleeing from communist dictatorship to the West.

Israel’s hostile Arab neighbors also welcomed the neshira, but that was poor compensation for the blow to the Soviet bloc’s geopolitical aspirations or the harm that it caused to domestic stability.

Who dealt with receiving repatriates in Vienna? I asked Yakov Kedmi. The Sochnut (Jewish Agency)?

The Jewish Agency always dealt with this abroad. Israelconvinced the U.S.to bestow the status of refugees on the repatriates from the Soviet Union who went to Israel. The U.S.allocated from sixty to eighty million dollars annually to an aid program for those refugees. The noshrim, however, also received the status of refugees with all the ensuing benefits. The Americans gave the money to the Israeli government, which transferred it to the Sochnut because the latter was a non-governmental organization. The Sochnut transmitted it to the noshrim via the representatives of the JOINT and HIAS in Italy. Rome not only had been a transit point for Jews from Eastern Europe from the time of World War II but also representatives of the American immigration authorities worked at the U.S. Embassy there. For various reasons, Jews were thus sent from Vienna to Rome. Beginning in 1977-78, when it became clear that neshira was predominating, the Israelis woke up and began to discuss the topic.

Weren’t there any representatives of the Bureau there?

There were. They tried to do something after the process acquired alarming proportions, but it was too late. There were too many interested parties, and the Israelis turned a blind eye to it. Back in 1972, political bodies initiated discussions on how to stop the neshira. The issue was raised in Herut but, considering it a violation of human rights, the Russian faction headed by Leah Slovina categorically opposed any efforts to hinder the direct immigration of Jews with Israeli visas to the U.S. Under their pressure, Begin also accepted that position. Later, when it became clear that the situation had become catastrophic, Yitzhak Rabin asked for Begin’s support in raising the issue with Jewish organizations. Begin responded that he preferred to discuss the issue after elections, but, after his victory, Begin calmly stated that he needed American Jews’ support on the issue of Judea and Samaria and, therefore, would not quarrel with them over neshira.

Begin came to power only in 1977.

Yes, and the matter was again put aside. Through feeble-mindedness they decided that the reason people were not going to Israelwas that they didn’t know what it was like. Let’s send Sochnut representatives to the transit points, they proposed, who will conduct explanatory work and convince people to immigrate to Israel. Leah Slovina headed this effort, sending dozens of emissaries to Viennaand Rome. Other subsequent “wise” plans included setting up a huge transit point near Naples[in the 1970s, a transit point was set up near Romeat Ladispoli]. HIAS representatives would not be permitted there during the first week of the emigrants’ stay, during which time our people were supposed to “brainwash” them. After that, those who wanted to go to Americawould do so, and the rest would go to Israel. I said then that nothing would come of the plan and that the noshrim would go toIsrael only if they had no other choice.

Did Levanon try to play any role in this?

He tried to raise the issue, but he did not have the government’s support, and American Jewish organizations refused to cooperate on this matter so…. HIAS and the JOINT traditionally dealt with the Jews who did not immigrate toIsrael. When some of the Soviet Jews who had arrived inIsraelbegan to leave, HIAS and the JOINT inItalyalso dealt with them, helping arrange their immigration to theU.S.Despite the fact that they were arriving in theU.S.fromIsrael, HIAS obtained refugee status for them.

Refugees from Israel? Why did the American government go along with this?

Because of pressure from local Jews. Officials said, “We know that it’s not right, but we don’t want to get into a conflict with Jewish organizations. We don’t want to be accused of antisemitism.” People from the administration told me very quietly, “Protect us from your Jews and everything will be all right.” Gradually, however, we increased the pressure, saying it was abnormal that Jewish organizations were using funds collected forIsraelto help Jews go fromIsraelto theU.S.It was then decided that those who had spent over a year inIsraelwould not receive aid from American Jewish organizations inItaly.

Which of the Americans was the most stubborn?

HIAS, JOINT, and American NACRAC (National Advisory Community Relations Advocatory Councils, Y. K.), which consisted of community representatives, and the communities supported this… they had such a surge of activity! Each organization had its own motives for supporting the procedure whether economic, political, or administrative but they presented it as a struggle for human rights and for freedom of movement. Those same issues ceased to agitate them when the aliya fromEthiopiastarted; Ethiopian Jews should go toIsrael, notAmerica. No JOINT or HIAS dealt with helping them to move toAmerica; they had to go only toIsrael.

I was surprised by Leah Slovina’s position as presented by Kedmi. She grew up inRiga, the capital ofLatvia, was attracted to Zionist ideas from early youth, and later devoted her life to the Zionist movement.

Leah, why did you object so categorically to halting the immigration of Jews with Israeli visas to the States? I asked her.[15]

At the time, I was head of the department of aliya from the Soviet Unionin the Jewish Agency. If you would ask me how I and those around me felt about neshira, the answer would be unambiguously negative, but that was not the issue. The real question was the policy regarding neshira. One could regret that it exists, reinforce propaganda in favor of aliya, or take administrative measures to hinder neshira.

When neshira became larger than aliya─that was in 1976-77, I differed from the others and categorically opposed the use of administrative measures to end neshira because I thought it would turn into a boomerang that would strike us. In that case,Israel would be seen by the Jews as a secondSoviet Union. What if they didn’t want to go toIsrael? Any visa is an exit permit that doesn’t obligate a person to go to a specific country. When a person with an entry visa toIsrael arrives inVienna or another city, he is a free person. It all depends on what country will accept him.

He is free, but those who remained in the Soviet Union were certainly not free. The Soviet regime would decide their fate taking into consideration their behavior, not to mention the fact, that noshrim took the place of olim in the exit quota.

You can’t force a person to be moral. You can force him to obey the law. TheSoviet Uniondidn’t give a damn where the Jews went. They knew very well that the invitations were fictitious. Rather to the contrary, I saw Central Committee documents in which they tried to soothe the Arabs who protested against the Jews’ emigration. The Soviet authorities would say, “That’s only formally. The majority don’t go toIsrael…”

 

In this discussion it’s important to stress that now, knowing what followed, we can say, “Yes, the Soviet Unionin some sense turned a blind eye to neshira. If we return to the 1970s-80s, however, and consider all the “pros” and “cons,” the risk of losing aliya because of neshira was very serious. With hindsight one can explain the sharp reduction in emigration in the first half of the 1980s by the effect of the Afghan war on international relations, but we used to hear other words in our stand-off with the authorities: “What kind of repatriation are you talking about. Look at where they are all going…. It’s time to close up this shop.”

We wrote letters of protest and offered many, many proposals. It was a natural reaction from people with a Soviet mentality. I now realize that many of our ideas were rather naïve. Growing up in isolation, we had only the vaguest notion of how the free world operated. But I am confident of one thing: if in those years emigration from theUSSRhad been carried out viaIsrael, there would be 100,000 more Jews here. Re-emigration fromIsraelalways existed and was perceived as part of the normal migration process. The figure for Russian-speaking Jews who maintained the status of refugees constituted about seven percent of the aliya, which is relatively low. I don’t think the numbers would have increased significantly if the entire emigration process─up until the real opening of the gates─occurred viaIsrael.

The eighteen-year war against neshira can be divided into two periods: from 1971 to1981 and from 1989 to 1991. Even in the interval between the active phases, however, the Jewish world on both sides of the Atlantic was involved with this issue, conducting special meetings and formulating policy. The Third International Conference on Soviet Jewry (1983) was originally planned for Paris but, fearing that a conference in Europe would acquire a more universal direction, the Israelis had it moved to Jerusalem. Preliminary agreement was reached that the issue of neshira would not be raised at the conference in order to assure Jewish unity. Nevertheless, Aryeh Dulzin, then head of the Jewish Agency and an active opponent of neshira, raised the issue. As a result, fierce disputes broke out, which only confirmed the existence of various positions. The Soviet Union reacted very negatively to the conference and, perhaps as a countermeasure, in the same year established the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public, which was designed to counter the emigration movement and undermine the credibility of the Jewish state.[16]

The selection of a country of residence was determined by the level of national consciousness, and, indeed, that level was not sufficiently high among Soviet Jews. If, however, they had been given a choice of immigration toIsraelor continuing to live in theSoviet Union, the overwhelming majority would have preferred emigration. This is what occurred in 1989, when emigration became free and a separate route to theU.S.limited by an immigration quota was opened.

What was your personal attitude toward neshira? I asked Shoshanna Cardin, chairman of the National Conference for Soviet Jewry at the time.[17]

I believed that it was wrong to come out on an Israeli visa, drop out inViennaor Ladispoli, and go to theUnited States. I have to tell you that it was not a popular opinion. I fought literally with the organized community because they said “freedom of choice,” which is something very important in theUnited States. I said I, too, have freedom of choice and my choice is not to give money to those who are coming to theUnited Stateson an Israeli visa. It was not a popular concept in 1987 or 1988. Then Abe Foxman of the Anti-defamation League [ADL] invited me to address his national board because he held the same views as I did. He had lived in a displaced persons camp after the war for three years in order to get to theUnited States. He believed that if you want to go to theUnited States, you apply to theUnited States. The problem was that there wasn’t a diplomatic vehicle. TheUnited Stateswould not permit or did not enable its embassy to issue visas. We had to convince the Soviets that it was OK to issue visas if theUnited Statesasked for them. We had to convince theUnited Statesthat it was OK and that we should have a direct channel. A very difficult argument. I went to the ADL’s national meeting and made my case, and the board voted to support that position. It was the first national organization to support the position that with Israeli visas─you go toIsrael;U.S.visas─you wait for theUnited States.

And those who opted for the U.S. ought to apply to immigrate to the U.S.?

Absolutely. It was important that: 1) theUnited Statesgovernment afford the ability to issue American visas inMoscow. 2) the Soviet Union let American planes land inMoscowor have Soviet planes take the people right toNew York. We wanted directMoscow-New Yorkflights.

I thought there were direct flights before.

Not for refugees.

How did it develop further? I heard that in 1989 America closed its doors to emigration except within certain frameworks.

That’s correct. There was a concern about too many immigrants coming to the United States and who would fund them and support them and how would the Federations take care of them because when they came in as refugees, the Federations, which took care of them, agreed that they would never become dependent on the States for money. When we realized the numbers would be huge, we set up the “No Name Committee” initiated by Mark Talisman. He was the Congressional aide who wrote the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Committee members included Max Fischer, myself in my capacity as chairman of the National Conference, Mendel Berman, and Bill Berman, who was president of the Council of Jewish Federations. There were thus the four of us and the head of theU.S.government immigration services and a representative from the State Department.

“The administration offered us 25,000 slots [out of a total quota of 120,000] but we told them that we needed 40,000 so we could reunify families and the Jewish community could afford to pay for that number and keep the immigrants from becoming wards of the state…. Then we pressed the American government to press the Kremlin to let Soviet Jews apply for exit visas to either Americaor Israel.”[18]

Explaining the pro-Israel stance of Max Fisher, one of the richest and most influential of American Jews, Cardin commented, “Max was convinced that, first of all, Israel needed the immigration while the American Jewish community did not; two, that the Soviet Jews would be lost if they came here, whereas in Israel they would be returned to the Jewish people.”[19]

Around the end of 1989, emigration from the Soviet Unionbecame practically free. At that time, the Bush administration agreed to increase the entry quota of Soviet Jews from 25 to 40 thousand people The Soviet Union agreed to direct immigration to the U.S.parallel to that to Israel. The same possibility then appeared with regard to other Western counties. The emigration process was normalized and the issue of neshira became a moral rather than political one and lost its urgency.