The revival of national culture was always an important component of the movement’s program. With the start of the perestroika period, this activity acquired an additional powerful stimulus. Seminars more frequently featured lectures on national topics. Hebrew teachers, women’s groups, “Poor Relatives,” and the “Second Generation” also began to organize lectures and discussions on historical and religious subjects. The “Ovrazhki” joint trips out of town, which had been prohibited since 1980, were revived. Samizdat activity intensified, new periodicals appeared, and a Jewish historical society and Jewish library began to operate.

Commemoration of Jews murdered by Nazi at places such as Minsk (Belarus), Panerai (Lithuania), and Babi Yar outside of Kiev evolved on a massive scale. The police did not interfere in such activities. Educational activity was also stepped up.

Of course, not everything proceeded smoothly. Hebrew teachers occasionally were threatened with reprisals, as occurred in Baku;[1] vandals desecrated Jewish cemeteries, for example, in Orsha, Kaluga, Malakhovka, and Moscow (the Vostriakovskoe cemetery);[2] and vigilant citizens complained about excessive Jewish activity, for example, in the camps near Moscow for training out-of-town teachers, and so forth. Nevertheless, perestroika picked up speed, and new initiatives boldly broke new ground.

Legalists

Gradually, a legalist wing, whose goal was a cultural revival, began to form as an independent direction separate from the traditional movement activity, which strove, primarily to stimulate and serve aliyah to Israel.

With the departure of almost all the long-time refuseniks in 1987-88, the composition of the movement began to change rapidly. Many new people appeared, inspired by the opportunities of perestroika and not worn down by lengthy opposition to the regime. New cultural institutions developed that were oriented not so much toward the refusenik community as toward those Jews who decided to remain in the USSR. Of course, our cultural programs were always designed to acquaint all interested persons with the language, history, culture, and traditions of our people. Earlier, however, all national-Jewish initiatives were forbidden and harassed, and only people who transgressed the official social directives─dissidents, Zionists, and prospective emigrants─dared to come in contact with them.

Already in the early 1970s, several Zionist movement activists (Vladimir Prestin, Pavel Abramovich, Yosif Begun, Veniamin Fain, Semyen Kushnir, Tsilia Raitburd, Ilia Essas, and others) acknowledged the intrinsic value of acquainting people with the national culture and tradition independently of the aliya struggle. Some people even expressed an opinion that was very unpopular at the time that, in order to develop and disseminate national culture, it was necessary to cooperate with the regime or else nothing serious would come of it.

It seemed unthinkable at that time to cooperate with the very regime that was harassing and arresting activists. The totalitarian regime always entailed censorship, subordination, communist propaganda, and other such attributes. Nevertheless, some activists saw certain niches for such cooperation. The most prominent and consistent advocate of that direction was Mikhail Chlenov. “Even before the founding of ‘Mashka,’ I was a legalist-kulturnik,” he recalls. “In advance of the 1976 symposium, I formulated this direction and, in principle, strove for a dialogue with the regime. Independently of the unfolding of my own personal fate, I assumed that Soviet Jews had the possibility of living in the USSR in the framework of a normal community.”[3]

The Historical Ethnographic Commission

The legalist direction’s first real test of strength was the formation of the Historical-ethnographic Commission in 1981 at the initiative of the ethnographers Mikhail Chlenov and Igor Krupnik. Mark Kupovetskii, an active member of that commission, told me:

Formally, the commission was established under the auspices of the Geographical Society of the Academy of Sciences. Igor Krupnik and Mikhail Chlenov were directing the Society’s Ethnographic Commission and a circle of future participants of our Historical-ethnographic Commission was formed within that commission. People who were interested in Jewish topics used to come to the lectures. Because Krupnik did not always manage to arrange for reports about Jews, they decided to follow Velvl Chernin’s suggestion and go to Aron Vergelis, editor-in-chief of Sovetish Heymland, where Chernin was working. Vergelis promised them a room for meetings, lectures, and the possibility of publications. For three months he honestly carried out his promise: we managed to hold three sessions there and attract an audience. Over a hundred people, including refuseniks, attended the third lecture. Evidently, Vergelis was called on the carpet by the higher-ups, and he canceled the lecture activity, although we were able to meet there in a small format a few times. We then continued our meetings in private apartments in the framework of an ordinary seminar. Generally about ten people would get together, but the general number of participants was double that number.

What was the basic direction of the commission’s activity?

When a national movement arises, some group within it invariably tries to formulate national goals. Chlenov tried to formulate and promote his program of autonomy.

The commission would meet two to three times a month at various apartments. Under the aegis of the Geographical Society, the commission organized sessions with reports and carried out expeditions. Chlenov related: [4]

I traveled on Jewish matters to the Caucasus and to Central Asia. Beizer’s Leningrad group dealt with the Holocaust and traveled around the Pskov and Vitebsk oblasts, interviewing witnesses of the annihilation of the Jews. We had a joint plan and we would travel to each other and give lectures. Manulik Zingers from Vilnius participated in this. The commission operated for about seven years, providing an impetus to the development of Judaica, a field in which hundreds of people are working today.

Others who took part in the commission’s activity included the prominent ethnographer Professor Anatolii Khazanov, the journalist Aleksandr Razgon, a leading movement activist Viktor Fulmakht; the ethnographers Galina Starovoitova and Natalia Iukhneva and Mikhail Beizer would arrive from Leningrad. Far from all participants shared Chlenov’s autonomist views and, therefore, the meetings frequently aroused productive discussions. Interruptions in the commission’s activity began in 1987, and in the summer it ceased to operate.

The Jewish Historical Society (JHS)

The establishment in Moscow of the semi-official Jewish Historical Society was announced on November 4, 1987. Its founders were the historian Valerii Engel and journalist Aleksandr Razgon, [5] both of whom were linked to the Jewish movement. Razgon was a refusenik while Engel had been in contact with refuseniks for several years and had studied and taught Hebrew. From the beginning, the JHS was conceived of as a legal institution working in contact with the authorities. The Historical Society, in a certain sense, filled the niche left by the Historical-ethnographic Society.

The announcement about the establishment of the society spoke about the formation and future development of an academic school for the study of Jewish history and also about spreading historical knowledge of the Jewish people. In light of the stepped up activity of antisemitic nationalistic groups that were spreading monstrous disinformation about the Jews, the dissemination of accurate historical information was most urgent. Under the society’s auspices, public lecture courses and also courses for teachers on Jewish history and culture were organized. Society members would travel to other cities to aid local Jewish groups in organizing cultural life.

Was the Jewish Historical Society the inheritor of the Historical-ethnographic Society? I asked Mark Kupovetskii.[6]

No, other people were involved─Valerii Engel, Evgenii Satanovskii, and Leonid Praisman. But they, so to speak, took the baton. At first, I took a cautious view of the society. In April 1989, however, Engel proposed that I participate in their work. He said that it was possible officially to register the society and perhaps there were some positions available. He truly succeeded in registering it under the cooperative of Lenia Roitman. In 1990 it was transformed into The Association of Judaica and Jewish Culture, and it already became an Israeli project. It had a unit called the ScientificCenter, of which I was the director. Applications for grants were accepted. In 1991 [the Israeli historian] Shaul Stampfer came to me and proposed participating in the creation of a scientific-educational structure. I conceived of a “HebrewUniversity” in Moscow, under whose roof I brought everyone who remained, plus Militarev and Kaplanov, who had headed the Historical Society, which by that time was no longer functioning.

The “HebrewUniversity” was a project of [Rabbi Adin] Steinsaltz. I see the Historical-ethnographic commission’s value primarily in its effort to elaborate a strategy for the national movement. It was not directly related to culture. It was a successful attempt of many years of intellectual brainstorming in search of ways to effect a national revival as such. The most varied people were involved in it─Yiddishists, autonomists, and so forth, but they failed to reach any agreement. Mika Chlenov was an excellent moderator. He told us about dialogues that he conducted with you, but we viewed you as a pure species of practical Zionism, and we were seeking variations. A lot was accomplished because in the framework of these discussion Mika polished his own plans; we stated our objections and he reworked his ideas.

Yurii Sokol’s Jewish Library in Moscow

On September 13, 1987, the first independent Jewish library was opened in the private apartment of a reserve colonel, Yurii Sokol. Yosif Begun, who had received an exit visa a few days before the opening, played a major role in the establishment of this library. An indefatigable warrior for the legalization of Jewish culture, Begun had long harbored the idea for a library and started to realize it soon after his early release from his third imprisonment (February 1987). Although refuseniks possessed a considerable amount of useful books, which it was possible to collect, there was no location for them or a suitable person willing to be exposed to possible reprisals for his involvement in the project.

After several months of searching, Begun found Yurii Sokol, a recently retired army officer. As a member of the Communist Party, Sokol endured much unpleasantness for his role in the creation of the library, but he did not yield to the pressure.

“Volunteers,” related Begun, “began to bring books, bookshelves, tables, and chairs to Yurii and Liuba Sokol’s apartment. Many people donated books to the library on Jewish topics, which occasionally were unique editions for that time. For example, there were history books by Graetz and Dubnov, albums with views of Israel, and yellowed-paged collections of Jewish poetry. The future library received a marvelous gift from refusenik Viktor Fulmakht─the sixteen-volume Jewish Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron (1908-1916). Aleksandr Shmukler and Abram Torpusman contributed considerably to the work of organizing the library.”[7]

“It was the first place in Moscow,” related Shmukler, “where one could go and openly read books of the ‘Biblioteka Aliya’ series. We set up a library council with an executive secretary, a position that I occupied until my departure in 1991. When I left, I handed matters over to Lenia Roitman, and the library continued to operate until the middle of the 1990s.”[8]

Lectures were delivered in the library, in particular about the Jews’ participation in World War II and their role in the creation of the Red Army, and Jewish holidays were celebrated there.

The Jewish Museum

On January 24, 1988 a Jewish museum was opened in the home of Irina Rosenberg in Moscow. Yosif Begun wrote.[9]

We were inspired by the success in organizing the Jewish library in Sokol’s apartment. The establishment of the Jewish museum in Moscow followed naturally after that. An apartment was quickly found, and the museum was opened literally two to three weeks after the start of work. Roman Spektor was actively involved in the project; he found a location for the museum in an apartment near the Nikitskie Gates. A large share of the burden fell on the artist Misha (Moshe) Gimein, who professionally organized the entire exposition and during the final days before the opening literally spent his days and nights there. Even in the ordinary three-room apartment, the independent museum looked impressive and elegant. Its opening took place three days before my departure.[10]

Over sixty people, including Western journalists, attended the opening. The organizers turned to the Moscow municipal council with a request for official recognition and the allocation of a place for the collection. To everyone’s amazement, this recognition was granted─perestroika’s effects were visible. On April 8, the municipal council offered the independent Jewish Museum a location in a cellar near the Polezhaevskaia metro station.[11] While the preparations were underway at the building, the museum operated at Irina Rosenberg’s apartment and attracted visitors. On March 8, there was an opening of an exhibition by the artist Matvei (Mordechai) Lipkin at her apartment. The show presented his graphic works and paintings on Jewish themes and also a collection of ceramic vessels decorated in a national spirit. Over three hundred people visited the exhibition in the course of a week.[12]

The Jewish Cultural Association (JCA)

The JCA was conceived as an all-Union legal organization for facilitating the development of the national culture of Soviet Jews. The charter carefully recorded the goals and tasks, rights and obligations of members, its structure and governing boards, registration and financing. The association’s tasks included establishing clubs and museums; organizing conferences, exhibitions, festivals, lectures and concerts; arranging for studying the national language and history; conducting academic research, scientific and folklore expeditions;  preserving and restoring monuments; preparing its own publication, facilitating other publications; setting up a library, and much more. In other words, the JCA was conceived on a broad scale.

The founding congress was scheduled for May 15, 1988. The initiative group, which included Mikhail Chlenov, Roman Spektor, Evgenii Satanovskii, Velvl Chernin, and Mark Batunskii, first went to the Soviet Culture Fund and to the CPSU Central Committee, where, according to the group members, the establishment of the association was considered a timely and useful initiative. Press representatives, guests, and 217 founding members from various cities were invited to the founding meeting.

Suddenly the true complexity of the situation became clear. It seemed that some institutions had a negative view of such initiatives. A few days before the designated date, the owner of the conference hall that had been rented and paid for by the initiators canceled the deal. With enviable efficiency, the initiative group found another three places to hold the meeting, in each of which permission and rejection followed with an interval of a few hours.[13] A day after the management of the Yakuza Culture House agreed to rent its hall, blatantly Black Hundred style leaflets were plastered around the building. The JCA’s organizing committee issued a statement for the press condemning the discriminatory attitude toward the Jews. “Any initiative on a Jewish national basis is forbidden. At the same time, an association of admirers of Ukrainian culture was established and publicized in the local press.”[14]

It is worth noting that all these complications occurred after Leningrad Jews had received permission from the municipal council to use the rooms of the Kalinin district cultural center for rehearsals and filming of short films about Jewish music. It was also after the Jewish Cultural Association was officially registered in Estonia on March 20.[15]

A founding congress was next scheduled for September of the same year but it encountered the same arbitrariness from the authorities. Using bureaucratic pretexts, the municipal executive committee refused to offer the center a place.[16] Attempts to rent private halls resulted in the same dead end. Fifty-five activists wrote a letter to the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Aleksandr Yakovlev, and to KGB chairman Viktor Chebrikov: “Hebrew instructors’ teaching permits are canceled soon after they are issued, rented meeting halls suddenly ‘leak,’ ‘have electrical problems,’ or are closed by the health inspectors. This all occurs at the last moment, when it is already too late to cancel the invitations or utilize the prepared food products. Simultaneously, wretched, slanderous publications appear in the local press, against which the accused have no way of responding. Attempts to reach an agreement about holding any kind of measures in state buildings, clubs, or cultural houses after the word “Jew” is pronounced are doomed to fail….”[17]

“Finally,” recalled Mika Chlenov, “we rented a place in BaumanGarden. Five hundred people showed up. But, when we arrived at the spot, the café that we had rented was closed; of course, it urgently needed repairs. Specially placed loudspeakers were blaring insufferably in the garden, and a huge number of KGB men in civvies were poking about. Seventy people then went to a private apartment and the JCA held its founding assembly there. Again illegally.”[18]

Mikhail Chlenov was elected president of the organization; his deputy was Roman Spektor, and secretary of the organization─Evgenii Satanovskii. A board of sixteen people was selected, and a charter was reviewed and adopted. The board included prominent Jewish scientists, musicians, artists, and writers from Moscow, Tallinn, Kaliningrad, Kiev, Leningrad, and Friazevo. The JCA board had to fight for another year for the association’s legalization until it was officially recognized and registered on December 10, 1989.

The Solomon Mikhoels Jewish Cultural Center

The first international project in the field of Jewish culture was also undertaken in 1988 at the initiative of the vice-president of the WJC (World Jewish Congress), Isi Leibler, a loyal friend of the refuseniks, and Mikhail Gluz, the artistic director of the Jewish Chamber Music Theater [JCMT], which arose in 1977.

During a trip to Moscow Leibler met with Soviet bureaucrats and Jewish activists to discuss a planned agreement between the WJC and the Soviet Cultural Ministry. One of its elements was the introduction of movement activists to the board of the Mikhoels Jewish Cultural Center─Mikhail Chlenov, president of the JCA, and Velvl Chernin─and the provision for holding lectures and exhibits there on a regular basis. There was also talk of establishing a library as part of the Center. It was assumed that the center would be located in the building of the JCMT. On October 20, Leibler signed an agreement with Gluz about supplying equipment and musical instruments for the future center. An agreement with the USSR Ministry of Culture was signed on the following day; October 21, 1988 was the day of the founding of the SolomonMikhoelsCultural-educationalCenter, a first in Soviet history.

The formal opening of the center on February 12, 1989, in the JCMT building on Taganka Square was a festive international event, attended by the worldwide Jewish beau monde. A large delegation from the WJC was headed by its president Edgar Bronfman, who delivered a warm greeting. The most touching, naturally, was the speech of Isi Leibler. The Israeli consular delegation was represented almost in full; ambassadors from the U.S., Canada, France, Australia, England and other countries also attended. Other speakers included the author of The Jews of Silence, Elie Wiesel, the famous director of the Taganka Theater, Yurii Liubimov, the actress Nonna Mordiukova, Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, Pamela Cohen, president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry (UCSJ), Yulii Edelshtein, the representative of the Zionist Forum of Soviet Jews, and many others. Officials from the Soviet Foreign Ministry and Culture Ministry were also present. An exhibit organized by the WiesenthalCenter, “The Courage Not to Forget: The Jewish Holocaust, 1938-1945,” was opened in the building. On the day after the opening in the theater’s auditorium, a frank exchange of opinion took place among Jewish activists, international Jewish leaders, and Mikhail Gluz. That was followed by a concert in the prestigious Chaikovskii concert hall of Israeli, Australian, and American performers, including Dudu Fisher and Yaffa Yarkoni.

On February 14, an evening in memory of Solomon Mikhoels was organized by the JCA vice-president Roman Spektor in the theater building; over 1500 people attended. From February 12 to 22, festivals of Jewish culture were held in Moscow, Leningrad, and Tbilisi. American, Australian, Israeli, and Soviet performers gave joint concerts of Israeli and Jewish songs. Over 3000 people attended those concerts.

The Shalom Jewish Cultural Society

The signing of an agreement between the WJC and the Soviet Ministry of Culture about the establishment of the Solomon Mikhoels Jewish Cultural Center had curious consequences. A week after that, a founding meeting was convened for yet another cultural center, but this time for one that was initiated by the authorities. Apparently, in tandem with talks about founding the MikhoelsCenter, active discussions took place about establishing a parallel organization with the same goals but under the complete control of the regime. The MikhoelsCenter was harder to control because it operated on the basis of an agreement with the WJC, whose board included representatives of the national Jewish movement, who could be unpredictable. Moreover, the joy manifested at the center’s opening ceremonies evoked considerable irritation among conservative circles, stimulating a desire to seize the initiative, protect the Jewish masses from the “pernicious” influence of the West, and to channel them in the direction favored by those circles.

A similar approach was frequently adopted later in various places: as soon as some independent cultural association (a society, club, or group) arose in a city, the local party or municipal authorities would immediately create a parallel group from their own henchmen. The times were different, however, and that approach did not yield the desired results. The conservatives lost their standing in everything that pertained to the revival of Jewish national culture. The same thing, in the final analysis, happened to the Shalom Society, which later became another qualitative instrument for the dissemination of Jewish culture.

The founding meeting in the building of the Moscow Shalom Jewish Theater was set for October 28, a week after the signing of the agreement for the establishment of the MikhoelsCenter. The Shalom Theater was the founder of the society. One hundred of the secretly invited founders met at its building on the Warsaw Highway. Five representatives of the informal Jewish organizations, however, were also in the hall: Chlenov, Kosharovskii, Shmukler, Spektor, and Ostrovskii. Without any preliminary information, we couldn’t imagine how the stagnant Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public would be miraculously transformed in front of our eyes into the progressive Shalom Jewish Cultural Society.

The founding meeting resembled a performance that did not follow the planned scenario. Our five-some and Vladimir Zhirinovskii facilitated that turn of events. Zhirinovskii and Ostrovskii harshly criticized the proposed charter. I proposed inserting points into the charter envisaging the establishment in the context of the society of an anti-defamation group and a publication, the “Herald” of the society. I also sharply opposed adding sections in the charter about the struggle against Zionism, saying “the cultural society should deal with culture and not with politics.” Before the start of the voting for board candidates, Ostrovskii suggested that each candidate tell about his activity in the Anti-Zionist Committee─the proposed candidates, indeed, were all “state Jews.” Someone proposed including Kosharovskii on the board as the leader of the Hebrew teachers’ seminar and the initiator of The Society for Friendship and Cultural Ties with Israel; Roman Spektor, deputy president of the Jewish Cultural Association; and Gennadii Estraikh a member of the JCA board and a Hebrew teacher. Someone even suggested including Zhirinovskii. After passionate speeches by Efim Gokhberg and Aleksandr Ostrovskii calling on all those present to vote responsibly and understand whom they were choosing, the organizers proposed expanding the composition of the board from twenty to thirty members in order to include all the proposed candidates. The proposal was accepted and thus all the earlier nominated candidates were elected board members of the society.[19]

A month after my election to the board of the Shalom Society, I received an exit visa, but I managed to take part in a couple of board meetings. It was surrealistic. Looking up close at those who were members of the Anti-Zionist Committee, I could easily read on their faces the inner dismay of people who had devoted their life to a career and personal survival and who had grown accustomed to scorn for their servility to the regime. Some of them, aware of the changed situation, now didn’t know where to turn.

The centrifugal tendencies of certain ethnic groups in the USSR that had hitherto been hidden from the public at large started to be noticeable around the end of 1988 to the beginning of 1989, and inter-ethnic tension came to the surface. A fear of pogroms and the prevalence of empty store shelves stimulated both an interest in emigration and also the growth of legal Jewish organizations. Around that time almost all the refuseniks left while the legalist direction experienced an influx of fresh forces.

After the founding of the two official Jewish culture societies, new initiatives in that field multiplied. Under the chairmanship of Yulian Khasin, a club of Jewish bibliophiles was established on October 13, 1988.[20] The official Center for the Study of Judaism, which opened on February 22, 1989, accepted about 80 students, including refuseniks. The center’s opening was broadcast on Soviet television.[21] On March 31, 1989, under the chairmanship of the literary critic Tancred Golenpolskii and the Russian writer Sergei Baruzdin, the Association of Activists and Friends of Soviet Jewish Culture was formed.[22] The first issue of that association’s bimonthly Herald of Soviet Jewish Culture (Vestnik sovetskoi evreiskoi kultury) appeared on April 26.[23] On October 11, 1989, the Mikhoels Center, the Association of Friends of Jewish Culture, and the Herald of Jewish Culture founded the Association of Soviet Jewish Culture on a federative basis.[24] On December 10, the Association was registered and received an official status.[25] Somewhat earlier the Moscow Jewish Cultural-Educational Society, headed by Col Yurii Sokol, was also registered.[26] Cooperative cafés belonging to members of the movement appeared in Moscow; meetings, lectures, and discussions were held, and Jewish holidays were celebrated there. Our cafés in Moscow were Vltava of Efim Podolskii and Aist of Arkadii Kruzhkov. There was another Jewish café in Moscow called At Joseph’s.

Jewish Culture Societies in Other Cities and the Baltic States

The attitude toward Jewish national initiatives was considerably more liberal in the Baltic States than in Russia. Many people in the Baltic republics were never reconciled to their countries’ annexation to the USSR and were more strongly influenced by Western culture. In Lithuania, for example, there was the influence of the Catholic Church and of Poland, where the anti-Communist movement Solidarity had started in the 1980s. In Protestant Latvia the influence of German culture was felt. The Riga activist Shmuel Zilberg told me:

Riga, the capital of Latvia is a complex city. It is not entirely a Latvian city. In the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of the population consisted of Russians, Germans, and Jews. A group of local Jews belonged to the municipal elite. They were part of the intelligentsia, integrated into Latvian society, and many of them spoke Latvian. In the eyes of the surrounding peoples, it was no worse, and perhaps even better, to be a Jew rather than a Russian. Toward the end of the 1980s there were around 20,000 Jews in the city.[27]

Very few Jews remained in Estonia, but on March 20, 1988, a Jewish Cultural Association was officially registered in the capital Tallinn.[28] In December the association published the first issue of a Russian-language information bulletin Hashachar (Hebrew for dawn).[29]

In Lithuania in January 1988, a group interested in advancing Jewish national culture met with Lithuanian public figures to discuss the fate of Jewish cultural monuments and cemeteries; they adopted a decision to appeal to the LithuanianAcademy of Sciences to provide several positions for carrying out research on Jewish national issues. At a meeting of the Lithuanian section of the National Cultural Fund in February, a special group was set up to study and preserve the cultural heritage of Lithuanian Jews.[30] In the fall, work started on restoring the museum of Jewish culture in Vilnius and an exhibition of Jewish graphic works from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries was subsequently opened. It was assumed that the expositions would become part of that museum, which would be lodged in the building of the former Jewish theater.[31]

The Jewish Cultural Association of Lithuania held a founding conference on March 5, 1989 inVilnius. It adopted a charter and a program and selected 35 members of a council headed by the prominent activist Emmanuel Zingeris. About three hundred Soviet and foreign guests attended the founding meeting, including a delegation from the WJC headed by Kalman Sultanik and a delegation from the Yad V’shem Jerusalem Holocaust museum headed by its director Yitzhak Arad.[32]

Jewish national initiatives were even more far-reaching in Latvia. On January 6, 1988, a group of Riga Jews, who had turned to Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987 with a request to establish an official Jewish cultural center, announced the founding of the Magen society. It arose on the basis of an unofficial seminar “Riga Jewish Lectures,” that used to meet bimonthly, starting in 1975.[33]

Shmuel Zilberg recalls:[34]

In 1988, a full-fledged movement for rebuilding Jewish life in Latvia arose. It was decided to convene a meeting to establish a Jewish Cultural Society, and a large number of people passed through my apartment. Some people sat there, registering candidates for the society. Each person brought a signed sheet with the names of fifty Jews who delegated him or her, and then he or she was registered as a delegate to the meeting. We received permission to hold the meeting in the building which formerly lodged the Jewish theater. Our first point was a request to have the building returned to the community, not to the synagogue but to the secular Jewish community of Riga. Our lawyers prepared documents for registering the society─a charter and various other things. They also dealt with such issues as the status of the legal body and the restitution of property. All this took place over the course of a year.

In the fall of 1988, after similar meetings, formal Jewish societies were organized in other Baltic republics. Several thousand people came to the meeting in Riga, and we had to bring loudspeakers outside. You can’t imagine what it was like. It was quite a demonstration of strength! A large Israeli flag hung over the stage and the meeting began with the singing of Hatikvah [the Israeli national anthem]. Some people from the Israeli consular delegation were present. It was proposed to establish a Jewish children’s choir, an art studio, and so forth. September 1988!

In parallel a more radical and totally Zionist organization was formed, which was called the Latvian Society of Friendship with Israel, but nothing came of it. It was more realistic to establish the Latvian Jewish Culture Society. I had the feeling that the Latvians supported us. I think that even the Soviets supported our initiatives in order to reduce the tension. The idea of a democratic empire was attractive, and they were prepared to make some concessions to the Jews in the Baltic states.[35]

The Jewish Cultural Society was thus founded in Riga in September 1988. On January 19, 1989, the cooperative Tarbut for studying contemporary Hebrew was registered in the city.[36] On February 1, 1989, the Association of National Cultural Societies of Latvia was organized, in which the Jewish Cultural Association became a full-fledged member.[37] The first Jewish school in fifty years (since the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940) was opened with official approval on September 1, 1989. The school’s curriculum included Yiddish as a national language, Jewish history, music, and literature.[38]

In late 1988 and early 1989, under the influence of the broad liberalization of public life and the sharp rise in antisemitism, some Soviet Jews who had hitherto been rather passive began to participate more actively in Jewish matters. It was clear that antisemitism was the other side of the coin of liberalization: the more permissive atmosphere enabled the reemergence of racial, antisemitic, and other negative phenomenon that had been suppressed by the Soviet regime at the popular level. The need for joint action in opposing this evil was clear. Various Jewish cultural societies opened in Samarkand and Bukhara (Uzbekistan); Odessa, Chernovtsy, and Kharkov (Ukraine); Kishinev, Bendery, and Tiraspol (Moldova); Almaty (Kazakhstan), Minsk (Belarus), Baku (Azerbaijan), Krasnoyarsk, and other cities.

Under the leadership of Yosif Zisels, the Chernovtsy Jewish Social-Cultural Fund was established in June 1988. It began to publish the first Jewish information bulletin in Ukraine, working in close cooperation with the Moscow bulletin. Zisels recounts:[39]

In accordance with a decision circulated through party channels at the end of 1989, the party organs tried to control the establishment of independent Jewish organizations. The decision was implemented by the Cultural Fund, which began to set up Jewish cultural societies in various Ukrainian cities. This was done, naturally, to counter our initiatives. It was a big mess, and some of our structures merged with theirs, for example, in Chernovtsy. The forces were divided evenly. Nothing came, of this control, however, although vestiges of that party system exist to this day. In December 1989, the regime established the Jewish Cultural Association, which united dozens of societies in Ukraine.

The Jewish society Nadezhda [Russian for hope] was formed in Minsk in December 1987 under the chairmanship of Mark Kagan, whereas the Society of Friends of Jewish Culture opened there in October 1988 in the framework of the municipal division of the Soviet Cultural Fund.[40]

In November 1988, on the basis of a Jewish history seminar, the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society was founded in Leningrad. In December the Jewish Folklore Ensemble was set up in Baku, and the Jewish Cultural Society headed by Ilya Levitas was established in Kiev.[41]

In January 1989, a Jewish Cultural Center was opened in Kuibyshev [later restored to its former name of Samara]; in February, Jewish Cultural societies appeared in Gorkii [now again called Nizhnii-Novgorod] and Kharkov[42] and a Jewish Cultural Center opened in Penza. In March of the same year a Sholom Aleichem cooperative for Hebrew instruction arose in Samarkand, a Nota Lurie Jewish Cultural Society in Odessa, and a Jewish Cultural Society in Leningrad.[43] April saw the opening of the Sholom Aleichem Jewish Cultural Society in Kishinev with branches in Orgeev, Bendery, and Tiraspol.[44] In July, a Jewish Association with an official status opened in Almaty.[45] In August, the Haskalah Jewish Cultural Club opened in Krasnoyarsk[46] and in November─an Amateur Center for Jewish Culture in Sumgait [Azerbaijan].[47]

In December 1989, the Ukrainian Cultural Fund established the Republic Jewish Cultural Society to coordinate the activity of Jewish educational organizations that had appeared in the course of the year in twenty-five Ukrainian cities.[48] In December 1989, the Maccabi sport club was revived in Leningrad and also in Vilnius in January 1990.

In 1987, parallel to the rise of the independent and regime-initiated Jewish organizations, contacts with international Jewish organizations began to develop and advance in line with the reinforcement of perestroika. Attracted by the expanding opportunities, directors of these organizations visited the USSR at the head of representative delegations. By extending their influence to the third largest Jewish community in the world and helping it to regain its standing within the USSR, they hoped to strengthen the Diaspora as a whole. At the same time, Israeli political parties tried to set up branches to train supporters and build up their influence. Worldwide religious organizations such as the Habad movement, Agudat Yisrael, and Mizrachi had already become rooted in Soviet territory. The Reform and Conservative movements now sought their turn.

In the fall of 1987, a delegation from the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry (UCSJ) headed by its president Pamela Cohen arrived in Moscow. With Leonid Stonov in Moscow and Eduard Markov in Leningrad, Cohen set up a kind of mission in those cities. One of the tasks of these people was to maintain and constantly update lists of refuseniks.

In March 1988, Rabbi Richard Hirsch headed a high-ranking delegation from Reform Judaism to Moscow. In September 1988, a high-ranking B’nai B’rith delegation led by its president Seymour Reich and executive vice-president Dan Mariaschin arrived in the USSR. The visit culminated in the establishment of a B’nai B’rith lodge in the USSR with branches in Moscow and Leningrad. Aleksandr Shmukler told me:[49]

When Dan Mariaschin and Seymour Reich arrived, we were torn among various organizations. People were continually arriving from the Conservative or Reform movements, from Habad or B’nai B’rith, or the Union (UCSJ). I was especially interested in Seymour Reich’s proposal to establish a B’nai B’rith lodge in the USSR, which I would head. Thus, with your support, I became president of the B’nai B’rith lodge in the Soviet Union, after which we started to organize branches. We had membership cards and B’nai B’rith pins, and we paid membership dues. You and I and Seymour Reich later appeared on the cover of the B’nai B’rith journal. Reich subsequently headed the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

At first, our lodge was unbelievably successful. We planned events, facilitated the strengthening of Jewish identity, and fought against various antisemitic organizations such as Pamiat. The American B’nai B’rith gave us financial help and as long as that was forthcoming, the organization grew. We reckoned that the list of Russian B’nai B’rith members numbered about 700 people. We had several branches in other cities. There was a strong group in Samara and several groups in the Baltic states. In Moscow we held events approximately every two weeks in Café Vltava. The antisemitic sites, however, spread the rumor that B’nai B’rith was an underground Masonic group operating in Russia and that frightened off some Jews.

The Jewish Agency (Sochnut) showed an interest in the Soviet Union as soon as it appeared possible to enter that territory.

On June 25, 1989, a meeting was held in Jerusalem on the subject of activity in the Soviet Union. In attendance were the heads of JAFI [Jewish Agency], the JDC, the World Jewish Congress, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, B’nai B’rith, the Conference for Soviet Jewry, the Liaison Bureau, and the chief rabbis of Great Britain and Romania. … [The participants decided]: opportunities were opening up for Jewish cultural and educational activity in the Soviet Union. All Jewish organizations should collaborate or at least coordinate their efforts.[50]

Dr. Baruch Gur, a Sovietologist, became the architect of the Jewish Agency’s work in the USSR. He prepared a general work plan and headed a specially created division in the Sochnut to implement it. At the time, the Soviet Union was seen as a country with a strongly centralized regime in which it would be impossible to conduct local initiatives without previous Kremlin approval. Baruch Gur, however, formed the impression that the Kremlin’s “grasp” was weakening in some areas and therefore it was worth trying something new.

“When I was drawing up my proposal for the JAFI Board of Governors, I interviewed many persons. One of them was a psychologist and educator, Yosef Traupiansky, who had emigrated from Vilnius…several decades before. Many of those he had grown up with now occupied important positions in the Lithuanian power elite. … In September 1989, he became JAFI’s pioneer in the USSR.”[51]

Traupiansky established good relations with the Lithuanian leadership and with local Jewish leaders. With his mastery of Russian and Lithuanian, he quickly became popular with the local press. When a Jewish school opened in Vilnius, he helped with supplying material and a teacher. In March 1990, with the consent of Vilnius authorities, the Sochnut opened its first official office in the USSR.

The next emissary was Georgian-speaking Yitzhak Moshe, who was sent to Tbilisi, where he also was successful. He quickly opened a Sochnut office in Tbilisi, started courses in Hebrew, and began to work with the local youth. In January 1990, the Sochnut sent a letter to two hundred local Jewish organizations in the USSR proposing help in Jewish education and cultural undertakings. The local organizations responded with a stream of letters asking primarily for help in Hebrew instruction, which was extended.

In November 1990, Shmuel Ben-Zvi was sent to test the ground in Moscow; this culminated in the opening of a Sochnut office there and its recognition on February 18, 1991. In expanding its presence in the USSR, the Sochnut worked to implement the following programs: language instruction, study of the history and culture of the Jewish people, training local leaders, working with youth, developing a national press, and stimulating aliyah.

Relations between the Sochnut and Lishkat hakesher quickly became tense. This was, evidently, unavoidable because, despite the similarity of goals─both dealt with Jewish national education and aliyah─the organizations were completely different in terms of internal structure, financing, and the nature of their work. Lishkat hakesher is a governmental body with strict discipline and state financing. It preferred to operate without fanfare, press conferences, or spotlights, protecting its connections from unnecessary risk in case of unpleasant developments. In the course of forty years of work in the USSR, it had acquired invaluable experience in working in a country with a totalitarian regime. The Sochnut, on the other hand, is a large public organization that constantly needs to find sources of funding for its inflated staff and projects. The donors who contribute hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the Sochnut must be convinced that their personal money is not being wasted. At each stage of its activity, therefore, the Sochnut publicizes its activity broadly via the media. The majority of Jewish organizations in the West operate similarly.

The JOINT started operating in the perestroika USSR in 1989. Mikhail Chlenov told me:[52]

At first, the JOINT was apprehensive about contacting independent Jewish organizations, and it tried to operate via official bodies, in particular, the MaimonidesAcademy, which was in the sphere of the Habad movement. The JOINT tried to establish a network of Jewish libraries in the country but was not terribly successful in that. Subsequently, it began to contact us because our goals coincided: we were both trying to build Jewish communities. In January 1990, the JOINT allocated us $200,000 for that work, which represented considerable support. Changes soon occurred, however in the JOINT’s leadership, and it backed away from community building. Given the existing high level of emigration, the JOINT thought that all the young, working Jews would emigrate, and the majority of the remaining Jewish population would be the elderly, who needed social aid. To deal with that problem, they began to build so called “Heseds,” centers for food and aid to the elderly.

“At the end of 1992 to the beginning of 1993,” added Yosif Zisels, “the JOINT began to send packages.” The “Heseds” and packages from abroad provided substantial aid to older people and this project is still operating.

In the mid 1990s, ORT, which specializes in professional education, entered the USSR through the Education Ministry rather than via Jewish organizations.

The All-Union Roundtable on Soviet Jewry Issues in Riga

The newly formed Jewish organizations around the country needed to unite, organize, and try to comprehend the developing situation. Such an attempt was undertaken at a roundtable meeting in Riga in May 1989, which was attended by Jews from twenty-seven different cities in the Soviet Union and many guests from abroad. Israel was represented, naturally, by Lishkat hakesher and the Jewish Agency (Sochnut). Western Jewish organizations such as the JOINT, ORT, the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry, the WJC, and others all sent representatives. This meeting led to the creation of an organizing committee to establish the first all-union umbrella organization of Soviet Jews─the Vaad (Confederation of Jewish Communities and Organizations of the Soviet Union)─and to elaborate a program. “A central point,” explained Shmuel Zilberg, “was that the Vaad was not a Soviet organization but a confederation, a sort of Jewish Union. Plans envisaged holding regular meetings, establishing contacts, and joining international structures.”[53]

Members of the roundtable organizing committee included M. Chlenov (Moscow), R. Spektor (Moscow), S. Zilberg (Riga), A. Burshtein (Perm), B. Gaft (Riga), M. Vulfson (Riga), G. Krupnikov (Riga), E. Zingeris (Vilnius), G. Alpernas (Vilnius), I. Bokshan (Rostov-on-the-Don), R. Mirskii (Lvov), B. Mushigian (Tbilisi), and B. Binyaminov (Samarkand). The roundtable received active help from the Latvian Foreign Ministry.

The final document of the meeting acknowledged positive advances in the emigration process but pointed to many remaining deficiencies: “There is no law on emigration and no legal guarantees of freedom of emigration from the country. The shameful institution of refusal still exists; Jews, who leave on Israeli visas, are arbitrarily deprived of Soviet citizenship; elderly people lose the entitlement to a pension….” In stating that the immigration of Soviet Jews to the West can be regarded as the realization of one of the fundamental human rights to a choice of residence, the final document noted with concern the extremely weak national motivation for the process: “Only aliyah is part of the Jewish national movement.” The document also emphasized the common struggle against antisemitism and fascist groups, the need to set up anti-defamation structures, and the importance of free contacts with Western Jewry, especially with Israel. “The meeting in Riga was very interesting and it was brilliantly organized,” Chlenov related. “A decision was adopted there to convene the first congress of Jews in the USSR and an organizing committee was formed, which met monthly between May and December. We no longer met at my apartment but at the Shalom Theater in Moscow.”[54]

It is worth noting that soon after the Riga roundtable, Yosif Zisels and Shmuel Zilberg organized another intercity meeting, successfully bringing together in Riga representatives of Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Georgian, and Estonian national movements. Viacheslav Chornovil, the leader of Ukrainian nationalists and the most well-known Ukrainian dissident, was one of the participants. Some of the Georgian nationalist who arrived soon became ministers in the government of Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

What was the idea behind that meeting? What did you want to accomplish? I asked Shmuel Zilberg.[55]

We quickly sensed that the situation differed in various places and we needed to understand it. The most important thing was that the Soviets were trying to play the antisemitic card in various localities and to incite against the Jews. Chornovil said: “Look, in Ukraine there is no informal antisemitic organization but in Russia there is Pamiat. That’s what they want to palm off on us.” You can’t imagine how important it was, in the first place, to the Ukrainians and Lithuanians themselves that there be no antisemitic excesses in their countries.

Do you think that Pamiat and informal antisemitism was directed from the depths of the secret services?

It was absolutely a KGB affair. I am sure that it was the result of a struggle between various branches of the state security services.

When did you hold that meeting?

If I’m not mistaken, it was at the very beginning of the fall of 1989. It was a very important meeting. We brought together all those in the national fronts who were responsible for cooperation with national groups so that they would work out a democratic national policy. It was purely our initiative. We sat together for three days. And I must say that for a rather long time all the national republics did not allow the antisemitic card to be played. They stood firm.

Was this also part of the preparations for the Vaad congress?

The Vaad had a committee for cooperation with national movements that was headed by Zisels.

The Vaad

The Vaad was nurtured by many sources. An important role in its creation was played by the battle-hardened old guard of our movement, which had already breached a purely Zionist framework, and numerous perestroika groups.

Around the same time as the Riga meeting, the newly elected Congress of Peoples’ Deputies opened in Moscow. That was the golden hour of perestroika, the height of hopes for democratic transformations and an improvement in living conditions in the country. The congress sessions were broadcast on television, and for the first time in Soviet history, the population was able to view the free discussion of democratically elected deputies. Hopes, however, were gradually replaced by anxiety: so many problems that had previously been carefully swept under the carpet now became public knowledge. Some of them were purposely pumped up by forces opposed to perestroika. The work of the congress was accompanied by a feeling of growing chaos in the country, emptying store shelves, popular antisemitism, and interethnic conflicts at the periphery of the Soviet empire. Although Gorbachev managed on the whole to pursue a reform course, the aura of hope and inspiration that had surrounded the start of his rule quickly began to fade.

Centrifugal tendencies in the socialist camp, which had been developing latently for a long time and occasionally broke through to the surface in outbursts of popular dissatisfaction, began to threaten the integrity of the socialist camp. Promising not to interfere in the socio-political processes in the socialist countries, Gorbachev firmly adhered to his declared policy. Centrifugal tendencies also increased inside the empire itself. The preparations for the all-Union congress of representatives of Jewish organizations took place in the context of these events, which could not help but have an influence on the ideological disputes of the founders, who were not the sole interested players in the Jewish sphere.

The disagreements reflected not only the founders’ varying personal stands but also the differences in the milieu in which they lived. Mikhail Chlenov was trying to establish a centralized, federative organization with its head office in Moscow and branches in the republics. Zisels and Zilberg sensed more keenly the centrifugal movement in their republics. Indeed, Zisels was one of those who not only firmly believed in independence for Ukraine but also did everything possible to facilitate it. Both Zisels and Zilberg categorically opposed Moscow-centrism and proposed forming the Vaad as a confederation of autonomous organizations and giving the leadership only representative functions. They also insisted that a triumvirate of three co-chairpersons head the organization. In the end, their viewpoint prevailed.

Another group of issues that evoked ardent arguments concerned the correlation between the Zionist and communal components of the organization’s activity. All of the above-mentioned leaders favored a powerful Zionist component, but the organization also included many perestroika Jews who were still repelled and frightened by the very term “Zionism,” and their opposition needed to be overcome. Moreover, the activity in a legalist framework would entail constant contact and cooperation with the regime, and it was not clear how the perestroika authorities would relate to the organization’s Zionist activity. On the other hand, some leaders suggested that the Vaad undertake only Zionist activity. Lev Gorodetskii, the leader of the Zionist organization and the Teachers’ Union, proposed turning the Vaad into a committee on repatriation. When his viewpoint was rejected, he left the congress and withdrew from the Vaad’s organizing committee. Moderate Zionists such as Zilberg and Zisels initiated the establishment of repatriation committees in the framework of the public organizations that participated in the founding of the Vaad; they were to serve as a form of consultation centers equipped with the appropriate printed material. Zisels also initiated the establishment of the Zionist Federation as a co-founder of the Vaad.

Lishkat hakesher heartily supported the establishment of repatriation committees but related most coolly, if not to say hostilely, to Chlenov’s idea of forming a “national-cultural autonomy.” The Lishka’s logic is understandable. “When we analyze the events of 1986-1991,” commented Aleksandr Shmukler, “we must remember that no one, including Lishkat hakesher, expected the Soviet Union to collapse. We did not believe that under Soviet conditions, even with Gorbachev’s reforms, the establishment of independent Jewish institutions was possible. Therefore the activity of Chlenov and other advocates of national-cultural autonomy encountered opposition and criticism. Sure, another Thaw had arrived, but in another three to five years they would start putting people behind bars again.”[56]

Although there were many disagreements, the issues on which there was relative unanimity were much weightier. There was a sense of impending danger linked to the major changes in the country and the acute deterioration of the economic situation─sure signs of the approach of another “Time of Troubles” in Russia. For the Jews this was manifested in the greatly intensified activity of various extremist antisemitic groups that poured out onto the streets and squares of Soviet cities. Rumors of imminent pogroms spread already in 1988. The need for joint efforts to combat that evil provided a powerful stimulus to combine efforts.

Antisemitism once again demonstrated to assimilated Soviet Jews that one could masterfully adopt the culture of the titular nation, accept its way of life, and successfully create for it, but at the same time remain mentally, visually, and spiritually an alien element in that milieu. Even establishment Jews who felt uncomfortable in the face of this vulgar antisemitism were drawn to their national roots. Many of them sensed that the best defense against antisemitism was not an attempt at complete spiritual mimicry but a reliance on one’s own national foundation. The craving for Jewish knowledge and the restoration of elements of national education and of other communal institutions were also strong stimuli for consolidating forces.

The founding congress of the Vaad took place in Moscow in the House of Cinema from December 18 to 22, 1989. Mikhail Chlenov recounts: “It opened with a demonstration by Pamiat and Palestinians right in front of the doors. At the entrance members of the Ukrainian organization RUKH that came from Kiev to protect us stood guard along with the police. It was December and freezing and these scoundrels stood with their slogans, Palestinian flags, and cries: ‘Down with the Yids!’ Thus the Jews entered that elegant building. I remember that some fellow went crazy and tore off his shirt, jumped out, and pounced on the antisemites with a shout: ‘Damn you all!’”

According to the report of the mandate commission of the congress: “414 delegates from 77 cities were registered in the USSR, representing 204 organizations; [there were] 55 foreign guests from ten countries; 44 representatives from eleven democratic and national movements in the USSR; and 59 guests from various organizations in the USSR.”[57] There were also representatives from Lishkat hakesher, the JOINT, WJC, the Jewish Agency, and other organizations.

The complete absence at the congress of representatives of the Soviet regime, who ignored their invitations, was indicative. The regime’s position at that moment could be defined as “wait and see.” On the one hand, they did not want to give any legitimacy to this independent gathering through their presence, but, on the other hand, they no longer dared to disrupt it as they had done several times in the past in the case of the Jewish Cultural Association. The authorities permitted Vladmir Mushinskii to rent a hall, resolve transportation problems, and reserve rooms for the hundreds of guests. Baruch Gur noted that the majority of foreign guests received entry visas with the approval of the Central Committee and the Foreign Ministry. Even representatives of the Jewish Agency, who insisted on receiving an invitation as an official delegation, received entry visas at the last minute.[58]

The congress adopted an impressive program, whose intellectual foundation could have been the envy of many Western organizations, but its financial and organizational weakness was soon apparent. The Vaad did not have the funds to implement its program. In refusal, many things had been accomplished through pure enthusiasm, but that was no longer sufficient. There were expenses for transportation, offices, and representations, not to mention the projects that the Vaad hoped to implement. In 1990, the JOINT gave the Vaad a grant of $200,000, the first serious contribution, which enabled the organization to develop. The Vaad accepted the Jerusalem program, that is, it recognized the centrality of Israel in the Jewish world, which enabled it eventually, although after a considerable amount of time, to be accepted into the World Zionist Organization.

How were responsibilities divided among the three co-chairpersons? I asked Shmuel Zilberg.

I was responsible for aliya; in the Vaad it was called the committee for repatriation and ties with Israel. Mika [Chlenov] wanted foreign ties and he received the post of our foreign minister. Zisels received the republics and contacts with national movements.

The Vaad was the peak that legalists attained while still linked to the Zionist movement. It turned out to be a stable organization resting on a durable ideological base. For the first two years the regime couldn’t make up its mind to register the Vaad officially, but they did not hinder its functioning.

The Vaad survived the mass emigration from the USSR, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the difficult years that followed. Officially, the all-union Vaad ceased to exist at the beginning of the 21^st century, but, in fact, it ceased meeting from 1996. Its successors were the Vaad of Russia (founded in 1992) and the Vaad of Ukraine (founded in 1991). These two organizations continue to function and are recognized by the governmental authorities and worldwide. Mikhail Chlenov and Yosif Zisels are the permanent chairmen. In the post-Soviet space, the Vaad’s function as a unifying and coordinating body was taken over by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EJC).[59] Coordination between Jewish organizations from 1996-2002 was carried out at the level of personal contacts between the organizations’ leaders. The third co-chairman of the all-union Vaad, Shmuel Zilberg, immigrated to Israel, where he is a professor at HebrewUniversity in the Chemistry Department. His replacement, Semyen Vaisman from Moldova, also immigrated to Israel and today is the director of a museum in Ashdod.

“Looking back,” Aleksandr Shmukler told me, “I give credit to Chlenov who twenty years ago asserted that no matter how large the aliyah, the Jews would continue to live in the Soviet space. Not foreseeing the collapse of the Soviet Union, he began laying down the foundations for Jewish national life in Soviet perestroika conditions. He turned out to be right. I give credit also to Yosif Zisels, who solemnly believed that Ukraine would be independent. When he spoke to me about that in 1989, I thought he was crazy because it seemed so improbable, but what do you know…. Ukraine became an independent state.”[60]

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