Yuli’s Interview with Aryeh Levin on May 21, 2009.
Yuli: How did it come about that you were born in Teheran and then came to Israel?
Aryeh: I was just born in Teheran because my parents wanted to go from Russia – from the Ukraine to Palestine. They couldn’t do it at the time… It was 1926 just after NEP, after Lenin had died. My father was the head of a railroad station in the Ukraine. He had been the director of a sugar plant.
Yuli: In the Soviet times?
Aryeh: Yes
Yuli: Did he have a business before the revolution?
Aryeh: Before the revolution, his family was a very rich family, a small family living in a small city in the Ukraine. It was called Krolevets, near the Russian border. My father had to flee. His father and he became very rich during the NEP times.
Yuli: Were they running from the persecution of the NEP people?
Aryeh: No. After the NEP, he was transferred by the Soviet government to run a sugar plantation in another city. It was total confusion in those days. Nobody knew what was going on. There was nobody to run sugar plants. My father knew absolutely nothing about sugar plants. He became appointed director of a sugar plant. He did well as director of a sugar plant and later his brother was director of a railroad station in Kanatov and he died suddenly. There was no one to replace him. The family decided with the approbation (approval) of the Soviet authorities to transfer him to replace his brother. As you may know being director of a railroad station in those days was a very good thing to be financially. There was no transportation. Everybody was coming and going on the trains. There were no tickets. Everyone was coming and going without paying any fare. But they were running a lot of goods on the train. To run goods on the train was considered to be a very great source of income. However in 1926 there were troikas. Troikas began coming down from Moscow. As you know troikas had complete authority to execute anyone they liked. They did kill many people. The Troika!
Yuli: For economic crimes?
Aryeh: For economic crimes. For anything they thought up… It was not for any specific crime. It was for anyone that took their fancy in those days. They were very fanciful people and they executed a lot of people. My father got a message from his friend that the Troika was coming down to Konotop and he decided to flee. In those days the family had a lot of gold. The Cherbontsy had just come out. The paid a lot of money to organize my father’s departure. My father was already married to my mother in Krovetz. They were born and raised in the same city. My grandfather was a parnas, a provider of a large Chassidic community. In fact, I discovered this same Chassidic people here later in Israel but that is another story. My father fled. My Mother stayed. My father fled through the Ukraine and Azerbaijan. He came to Baku. He stayed in Baku for six or seven months to try to organize to cross the Persian border. His friends told him in Russia don’t go through Poland to Palestine because the NKVD knows the route through Poland. Go through Persia because no one goes through there. When you get to Persia, you’ll buy yourself a donkey and in three days you’ll be in Palestine.
Yuli: (laughing) Did they know to such a degree geography?
Aryeh: No. It was practiced in those days. There were people who were running from the Soviet Union to Persia and from Pesria going elsewhere.
Yuli: White Russians?
Aryeh: White Russians. My father was not a White Russian. He fled. He came to Baku. Then he crossed the border. His guide was a traitor. He gave him away to the Persian army, the Persian police and they put him in prison. After a year a Persian Jew, a traveling merchant came to that city on the border and he wanted to make a mitzvah of pidyon shvuim, of releasing prisoners. It was a great mitzvah. He found out about my father who was there and he released him. My father went away to another city on the Caspian Sea. He was very, very poor. He had no money at all. He was going around…
Yuli: Was everything taken from him?
Aryeh: Everything was taken from him. He had gold in his belt. The guide knew about it and they took everything away. So he suffered a great deal. To make a long story short, he came eventually to Teheran. My mother eventually came with an official Soviet passport. She came to Iran to join my father. She got a passport – I don’t know how… Not only did she get a passport but she was employed by the Soviet Consulate in Iran. She was head of Culture and Education in the Soviet Consulate. After a certain time she left it and went with my father to Teheran. I was born in Teheran.
Yuli: Did you have brothers and sisters in Teheran?
Aryeh: I had two brothers. My mother came with my two brothers to Iran but they both died because they fell ill. The situation was difficult.
Yuli: Were your brothers born before you in Russia?
Aryeh: They were born before me in Russia.
Yuli: So you were growing up alone really…
Aryeh: I was growing up without a mother. My father was working for a Russian family which ran a big transport company. They provided a room for me but they were not taking care of me. I was being taken care of by a Persian woman, a Moslem, a Shiite, who tended to my needs until I was seven years old. I grew up actually in a Shiite atmosphere. Then my father remarried when I was seven years old to a Russian Jewish woman and we had a wonderful house. We spoke Russian in the family. We had a synagogue of our own of European Jews. I went to a Persian Jewish school. I finished the Persian Jewish school. My father became the biggest owner of a lumber business in Iran. He was rich. He had the biggest saw mill in Iran. One night it burned down. This was in 1941. The war had broken out.
Yuli: In which year were you born?
Aryeh: In 1930. I was 11 years old at the time. My father was arrested by the Persian police. They accused him of burning the saw mill and a few other things. The British Army was there at the time and occupied Iran. The Americans had occupied Iran. The Russians were there too. My father was released. British were there at the outbreak of the war. In 1941, Churchill and Stalin decided to occupy Iran because the supply line going through Murmansk was very dangerous and many ships were being torpedoed by the Nazis. They wanted to have Iran which had a big railroad going from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. They decided to occupy Iran. They occupied Iran – Russia from the north to the center – to Teheran; and the British in the south up to Teheran.
Yuli: Was there an agreement with the Iranian government?
Aryeh: No. The Iranian government had declared neutrality. The Russians and the British presented an ultimatum. Get the Germans out of Iran or else we’ll occupy Iran. They fought for three days against the Russians and the Britsh and lost of course… There was a change of regime in Teheran. The old Shah was sent away to Mauritius. The new Shah came into power and the allies, Russia (the Soviet Union), Britain and the United States occupied Iran. The United States organized a command, an organization called the Persian Gulf Command that was responsible for receiving the lend-lease goods, munitions, arms, supplies and everything else and transporting it from the Persian Gulf to Baku. That was the story. Am I giving you too many details?
Yuli: Why didn’t your father flee to Palestine at that time?
Aryeh: He couldn’t. In those days it wasn’t easy… He couldn’t get Iranian citizenship. He was considered an emigrant and as an emigrant he had almost no rights. For many years he could not even open a bank account. With all this business going on he could not even have a bank account. Later he could open a bank account but he was not a citizen. To tell you a very interesting story the man who released him prison became a very rich Persian Jewish businessman and he became a member of Parliament. As my father could not have a bank account all the money he saved to go to Palestine he gave to this businessman who was his friend. My father’s cousin was Eliyahu Epstein. Eliyahu Epstein was Eliyahu Eilat, the head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency and he sent us in 1933 a certificate so we could go to Palestine. My father went to this Persian businessman who had all of his money and told him look I have this certificate. Give me my money. I want to go to Palestine. The business man said I’m sorry I lost all your money.
Yuli: Did he lose his own money as well?
Aryeh: No, no. I don’t want to go into the details now. This is another interesting story. I’ll tell you the story another time. He couldn’t give him the money. He had no money. This was in 1933.
Yuli: When did he succeed to leave?
Aryeh: We left in 1950.
Yuli: You were already 20 years old.
Aryeh: I was 20 years old. In the meantime, I finished Persian grade school and went to an American college run by American Presbyterians. I go back to your original question. I was born into a Russian Jewish family that had fled the Soviet Union. I was raised until I was seven years old by a Shiite woman. I went to a Persian Jewish school until I was 12 years old.
Yuli: Was the study in Yiddish or Persian?
Aryeh: They don’t speak Yiddish in Persia.
Yuli: In school you were studying everything in Persian. It was your native language.
Aryeh: Yes of course. Persian was my native language. Russian is my native language. Before I went to Persian school, I was sent to a French kindergarten.
Yuli laughs.
Aryeh continues: I stayed in the French kindergarten for a number of years. It was a Catholic kindergarten. I spoke French like a French boy. That was my story. After I was 12, and until I was 18, I studied at the American Presbyterian school. I thought I was an American. We were American boy-scouts. We had documents signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I had a boy-scout paper signed by Roosevelt; and then signed by Truman.
Yuli: Looking back from your current age, what kind of identity did you have before the age of 20?
Aryeh: When I was a child, beginning after 7 or 8, I was living with my step-mother who spoke Russian at home. Everyone was reading Russian newspapers. My father was receiving Russian newspapers from Paris. They started receiving little journals for children in Russian. They were reading them to me. I was very eager to read it myself. So I learned Russian and I started reading it… Before I was 14 or 15 years old, I was going through most of the Russian émigré library in Teheran which was very rich. I read all of the Russian great novelists and all of the Russian literature.
Yuli: How did you view yourself – Jew? Russian? Persian? French? Shiite?
Aryeh: My dear fellow… I am today and I have been for many years… When I came to Israel in 1950, my father was ill. He was broken with paralysis. He couldn’t speak… He couldn’t walk… I brought him to Israel hoping that I could find a medical service that could heal him. They couldn’t. I placed him in a home for the elderly. I had a stipend from Columbia University but I could not bring myself to leave my Father alone in this country. We had no one absolutely… leave him here and go off to America by myself…
Yuli: You do consider yourself American… American Identity… Anglo-Saxon identity…
Aryeh: Very much so in those days… What happened to my identity… I was conscripted into the Israeli army. I served in the Israeli Army for 12 years. I got my higher education in the army – political education. I was sent to Jerusalem to study Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies. I was a major in those days which was a very high rank in those days. I was working for the Intelligence community on the General Staff. I was the head of a department on the General Staff. I considered myself totally Israeli as many other Israelis in this country.
Yuli: Up to age 20?
Aryeh: I was American. I considered myself an American.
Yuli: What was your father’s identity?
Aryeh: My father’s identity was totally Jewish. Russian – Jewish.
Yuli: Did you have any Jewish education at home?
Aryeh: I did. I did have a Jewish education. I went to a Jewish school. The Jewish school did not give me very much of a education. Jewish education I had at home. During the years of the war, there were many Polish Rabbis who had come through Iran from Russia. My father organized my Bar Mitzvah with these Polish Rabbis. I studied for my Bar Mitzvah. I learned many things that I hadn’t learned before. I used to pray every morning and wear tefillin.
Yuli: Your identity was Jewish American?
Aryeh: Jewish American..
Yuli: Not Persian… Not Russian..
Aryeh: Not Persian… Not Russian.
Yuli: Did your knowledge of Iran and Russia helped you with working in Intelligence in the Army?
Aryeh: Exactly… In the Army Intelligence on the General Staff I was a head of a very large department eventually which took care of the political interests and analysis and assessments of the Soviet Union; and America and non-Arab Middle East. The Department consisted of 15 – 16 people. I was head of the department. Later it became a much bigger department. Today the head of that department is a full colonel and there are many more people. In those days that what I was… I had good contacts everywhere. I knew everybody. I was in the General Staff. I was good terms with the Chief of Staff and the whole network of people who wanted information and so on… It’s a different world. At the age of 28, I got married and I wanted to continue my studies at the Hebrew University. I was transferred by my Army people and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs got together. They decided to transfer me to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the department taking care of our interests in Iran and Turkey.
Yuli: A usual route really from secret service of IDF to Foreign Ministry… from point to point with knowledgeable people there.
Aryeh: In the meantime, study… I was married already…
Yuli: I want to jump to 1987. How did it evolve that Rabin invited you to represent Israel? How did it come to you to go Russia? What challenges were involved? You went through many countries… Some details I know from reading your book on the internet… Let’s come to the point when you prepared yourself for your Russian journey. How did you appreciate it?
Aryeh: I’ll tell you. In 1981, I was sent as Ambassador to the UN in New York as Deputy Head of our mission with rank of Ambassador. This was several years after I had gone back to Teheran to be Charges D’Affairés of our political mission in Teheran. I was head of our political mission in Teheran for four years. There was an unofficial Embassy there. There was an Ambassador who knew nothing about Iran. I ran the Embassy for four years. After that I came back here and I was head of the Middle Eastern Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After that I was sent to New York. After I finished in New York I became head of the biggest department in the Ministry at that time which was called Political Assessment (Intelligence). In those days I was faced with the major problems of terrorists; Palestians; Iranians…
Yuli: How did you communicate with Secret Service on these matters? You had your own Intelligence Service?
Aryeh: We had our own Intelligence Service. This Intelligence Service came about because of the Yom Kippur tragedy. We were not prepared. You should not rely only on the military or the Mossad. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should also have one. I was the head of that department. We worked very closely with all the other organizations.
Yuli: I remember that you had quite difficult relations with NATIV in Moscow.
Aryeh: NATIV is something else. If you want me to talk about NATIV, we’ll talk about NATIV. NATIV is a different story. Nativ took care only of Soviet Jews. The did not take care of Europe, only as propaganda. Eastern Europe is a different story…
After that, I came back to Jerusalem and I became head of this big department, this big Intelligence and Analysis Department. I was there. I used to speak with many Ambassadors of all the countries that are here in Israel and receive visitors from all over the world. One of these visitors was a Soviet newspaperman, (he was here and there worked East and West)…
Yuli: Victor Louis.
Aryeh: Victor Louis came to me in Israel and we had a long talk. (1986-or 1987). When he was going out the door, he said you will be the first Israeli Ambassador to Moscow.
Yuli: Victor Louis was already connected to the authorities. He already knew there was going to be restoration of relations…and so on and so on..
Aryeh: That was the opening shot. One day… The Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time was Mr. Shimon Peres. There was a rotation between Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Shamir. They hated each other’s guts. They couldn’t agree on anything at all. One day in September 1988 a telephone rings in my office and it’s Shimon Peres. He says “Aryeh, Yitzchak Shamir and I have decided to appoint you our Ambassador to Moscow. I want you to go Moscow and to try to open an Embassy there” (formally it’s a decision of the government to appoint an Ambassador). (The letters of credence are from the President of the State who formally asks the President of another country to accept this man as his representative.) I said really, I’ll do my best. One bright day in 1988 I went to Holland, to the Hague, bought some clothes, fur hats for Moscow. I came to Moscow. At that time the NATIV people were already in Moscow sitting in the Dutch Embassy. (I lived in the Hotel Ukraine.) I came there and I replaced… There were two people from the Ministry; three people from NATIV and one security people.
Yuli: Did NATIV work in agreement with you or was it independent completely?
Aryeh: NATIV was entirely independent and it had nothing to do with me. They called me in to NATIV. They invited me over to their department and Yasha Kazakov was there. The head of NATIV was David Bar Tov. Bar Tov started gave me a lecture on how important immigration is. I said: Bar Tov how many years are you dealing with immigration? I said you know that in 1948 – 1949 I was head of the refugee camp of Jewish emigrants in Teheran. I sent 12,000 Kurdish Jews to Israel. Then I, also, sent many thousands of Jews from Iran to Israel. Don’t tell about the importance of immigration…please. That was their attitude. I knew from my friends in different embassies that NATIV always took this attitude of ascendency; that they were more important; doing something more important than anybody else… When I came to Moscow we were working in a very small room in the Dutch Embassy, the six of us.
Yuli: I understand that NATIV’s approach to Soviet Jewry and emphasis was first of all emigration, to take as many Jews as possible from the Soviet Union to Israel, c’est toué, no more… What was the approach of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to this policy; to this superpower and major player in the Middle East? What was the difference in your approaches? How did you see their tasks?
Aryeh: When I was the head of the Intelligence Unit in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NATIV also, had an authority of Intelligence over the Jewish question in the Soviet Union. As this intelligence was not solely related to the Jews but also to affairs that went along with it, they considered themselves great experts on the Soviet Union. They knew everything about the Soviet Union. Yasha and his staff always told everyone what the Soviet Union was; how to understand it and so on… When I was in Jerusalem I used to invite them… I organized colloquiums with the other organizations regarding the Soviet Union. I used to invite them too. I told Shamir and I told Peres that I was going to be Ambassador, and head of this mission; that means as head of my mission, I had to know exactly what they were doing. They did not always have to have my approval. I always had to know exactly what they were doing ahead of what they were doing… That’s why I came into confrontation with Yasha and his people because they always thought they were completely independent and they could do anything they wanted and so on…
Yuli: They had diplomatic coverage inside diplomatic staff as is the usual practice in any Embassy… Is this the usual practice in any Embassy?
Aryeh: Yes… I was head of the mission.
Yuli: Ususal practices are: For example, with the American Embassy, any secret service representative should have the approval of the Ambassador or are they under them; or just under observation?
Aryeh: Formally, every Western Embassy is responsible for everything that the Embassy does. The Ambassador, who is head of the mission, has to know everything that goes on in his mission. Otherwise, the Secret Service people might try to do something which is opposed to the policy of the government or of the Ambassador. It is not considered useful or considers it harmful to what he is doing and it should not be done. Many cases of when Secret Services did something on their own; and it always ended up very bad. However, I’ll give you an example. In France in 1969 or 1970 I don’t know if you remember this or knew it at the time. There were the Cherbourg boats. Our Ambassador at the time was a man called Walter Eytan (Enid’s Note: An extraordinary person Yuli who founded the Foreign Ministry in Israel. I was proud to have known him!) He was a very old-style Ambassador. The man in charge of this operation was Admiral Boker Limon. He died a few days ago. Boker Limon planned this operation of taking out the Cherbourg Boats under the nose of the French. (Enid’s Note: N.B. Five French-built torpedo boats, purchased and paid for by Israel, are successfully brought from Cherbourg port to Haifa, despite French arms embargo . MFA – Israel).
The Ambassador was completely in the know… He knew about what was going on but he didn’t want to take responsibility for it. In those days when the operation was to take place he took leave of the Embassy, and went to Geneva so that it would not reflect on him. Otherwise the French government would say you are “persona non grata”, and you have to leave. So he went away… This is an example of what was happening in Russia all the time… Yasha and his group were dishing out visas. The visas had to be signed by the Dutch Consul. The Dutch Consul had to stamp it. There was no place for me to stay there. We had no telephones. We had no system of communication. The Russians wouldn’t give us anything and they did not even want to see me – the Russian government. They knew I was there but they did not want to accept our presence there officially. They dealt with the Dutch Embassy.
Yuli: Did you have a contract with the Dutch queen?
Aryeh: I had Dutch papers (not as a citizen). The Dutch were responsible for us and it was an agreement through the Russian government. The Dutch would take care of us – of our mission. We were acting on Dutch soil – Israel diplomats under the aegis of the Dutch government inside the Dutch Embassy. I had to do something to get through to the Russian government to start making my way. It was very difficult.
Yuli: Was there a Russian mission in Israel at that time?
Aryeh: There was a consular mission.
Yuli: Was there reciprocity in relations?
Aryeh: At the time there was no Russian Consulate here. The Russians were working here from the Finnish Embassy.
Yuli: Who initiated contacts of restoration of relations? Israel or the soviet government?
Aryeh: For many years the Israeli government tried to re-establish relation with the Soviet Union. The Russians did not want this for a variety of reasons. They did not want this because they were on very good terms with the Arabs. They were supplying the Arabs with armaments, with money, with technical know-how and so on… They were considered to be the allies of the Arab world. They did not want to have anything to do with us. I later learned that some of this policy was the result of the Politburo state of mind which was based on the men in the Politburo. The Politburo was a number of people who were making all these decisions or accepting or rejecting proposals made by their Central Committee. You know about this more than I… On the Politburo there were many old people who considered themselves to be very good friends of Nasser; Sadat; Saddam Hussein and so on… really good friends… and they were also anti-Semites. They did not have anything to do with the Israelis or the Jews. That was one of the main reason why they did not want to re-open diplomatic relations with Israel and that was also one of the reasons why they broke relations in the first place…
Yuli: Don’t you the potential for emigration of Soviet Jews and the love expressed for Israel?
Aryeh: That was one of the reasons.. They never imagined that a tremendous amount of people would leave Russia in a very short time.
Brezhnev allowed it for a certain time. 1972… After the war, many thousands of Russian Jews went through Poland. This is another matter.
I tired to make my way in Moscow. It was very difficult because no one wanted to see me. There were orders from above. At that time, because I was considered to be head of the Political Analysis Department in the Ministry, I decided to go to scholars, to universities and people who studied the Middle East. I got to find my way to an organization called Arbotov and I got there and found out that there was a man who was dealing with the Middle East there… I found out that they knew absolutely nothing about Israel; nothing not even about the political parties; not about the political life; not about our lives here. This was a reflection of something that had gone on before that… During the days of our meetings with the Soviets in Helsinki, which came before the opening of our mission in Moscow, two years before I went to Moscow or a year and a half… During these first contacts in Helsinki, the Russians did not agree to open a consulate. Later Mr. Peres’ assistants made contact with a group of officials from the Soviet Ministry who did this unofficially and secretly. They met with one of the assistants of Mr. Peres, whose name is Nimrod Novack. Nimrod Novak used to sit with this Russian who later became Ambassador here (from the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs). They met every four or five months and sit together and Nimrod Novack would tell him for ten, eleven, or twelve hours at a time about Israel, what Israel was like, political life and so on. I discovered that they knew very little about Israel. Little by little, I found my way through the writers in Russia; through different organizations in Russia. It was very difficult…
Yuli: Did they interfere with your contacts?
Aryeh: They did not interfere. They didn’t think it was very important. One night because of the people who had taken this plane and wanted to fly to Israel, (by bandits) at the end of 1988, in December.. all of a sudden I was in the hotel and I got a telephone call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Shevardnadze wanted to see me. The bandits had demanded from the KGB two million dollars because they had children on the plane. The KGB gave them two million dollars. And they flew. Where could they fly? They thought Israel was not having relations with the Soviet Union, they’d fly to Israel. At that time, the Soviet government, the Ministry of Tele-communications in Russia, although we had no contacts, he sent a telegram to our Ministry of Transport here and said this and this is happening here, would you please not let accept them in Israel. They replied immediately and said we would do it with pleasure. We will not receive them here. We will return them. That same evening Shevardnadze called me and his first question was: “Aren’t you freezing in Moscow? I said: “with such a warm reception, how can I freeze?”
Yuli (laughs)
Aryeh: He said that is a very good answer… We sat for an hour and a half and we talked. (This is a long story…) Finally, I told him, look, Mr. Minister, I don’t have telephones; I don’t have an office; I can’t talk with anyone… This is no way to conduct Foreign Relations. He said to his people – give him the telephone he needs and don’t put it off as you always do. I went away. Telephones were not produced right away. Contacts were not produced right away. I told him I want to talk to your Ministry. He said alright. It took six or seven more months until they started little by little releasing things. That was the end of the first stage of my stay there.
Yuli: I remember when I met you in Café Voltava…
Aryeh: That’s when you were already going. That was your departure party.
Yuli: My departure party was March 1989. Didn’t we meet before that?
Aryeh: Yes, we did. We met at Volodya Mushinsky’s apartment one evening.
Yuli: Did you meet Volodya before you met me?
Aryeh: Yes, of course. Volodya started working for me.
Yuli: We have met with you in Volodya Mushinsky’s apartment. There we have met with NATIV people as well. For me you were NATIV people. There you became acquainted with Volodya and invited him to work with you.
How did you see all sides of Jewish activists there? My books are on the Jewish National Movement, the Zionist Movement in Russia.
Aryeh: The Jewish National Movement considered me as an outsider. They never contacted me. They never had anything to do with me. I was in the Embassy. I considered NATIV to be responsible for this… NATIV never wanted me to have any contacts with the Jewish people because they considered this to be their private property. That’s the way it was for a long time. The first colloquium in Moscow – Yasha Kedmi did not give me an invitation. I was sent an invitation by somebody else.
Yuli: Didn’t you participate in Vaad – in the founding meeting of Vaad? I believe Volodya provided you with an invitation.
Aryeh: Yes I was there. In Vaad I was there.
Yuli: When did the Embassy formally open?
Aryeh: It was open in February 1991. It was open all the time. Before the Embassy, there was a Consul General. We met a year before that in New York. Shevardnadze said already we’ll open a Consulate General. Why not an Embassy? It’s very funny because Consulate General does not have independent status. The Consulate General is always part of an embassy. We were in Russia the Consulate General.
Yuli: Did they return to you the Israeli Embassy building for the Consulate?
Aryeh: Long before that… The Dutch Consulate moved into our building. They had the Dutch flag.
Yuli: The Embassy opened in February 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed…
Aryeh: Before that…
Yuli: What was your primary task with the Soviet Union?
Aryeh: My task was to re-establish diplomatic relations. Look I will to tell you something… When I went to Moscow, nobody told me what to do. Go there and try to re-establish relations. How did to do it – there was no guidance. Nobody told me anything.. I was not briefed. I was supposed to do the briefing myself to others because I was taking care of this whole question. So I went out there and came back to Moscow… For the first time I heard Russian spoken on loudspeakers at the airport. No one told me what to do. I had to think about everything by myself. That was the way it was…
Yuli: Were you cautious about contact with local Jewish activists because they were considered by the government contra-productive elements of the society, traitors and so on?
Aryeh: I was not cautious about it but this was not my calling. NATIV was doing that. It was his business. I wanted to get to know Russian people, not at that level. I wanted to get to know Russian Jewish intellectuals, Russian Jewish writers, Russian Jewish poets, Russian Jewish scientists and I couldn’t because they were afraid to contact me. They were afraid to talk to me. It took a long time before I did that. NATIV did not do that. NATIV’s business was to try to get as many Jews out of Russia by whatever means.
Yuli: Was it a very difficult task for you?
Aryeh: It was a very difficult task. I was alone. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave me one assistant who did not know Russian; knew nothing about Russia. He was a good fellow but knew absolutely nothing.
Yuli: Why?
Aryeh: Don’t search for answers. I never looked for answers. I was entirely alone looking out at this fantastic new world that I discovered.
Yuli: How did you appreciate glasnost and perestroika and Gorbachev’s innovations?
Aryeh: When I was the head of the department in the Ministry, I had contacts with the American Foreign Minister; with the Japanese; with the Indian; with the British; the German; the French; with many countries in the world. Nobody knew what perestroika was and what was going to happen in Russia. Nobody. I didn’t know. Before I left for Moscow, we had one big meeting with the Americans. Then the head of the American mission who was head of the analysis department in the Foreign Ministry and in the State Department – at the end of the meeting he said let’s now everybody speak off the cuff; whatever comes into your hear; it’s not official. The question is what’s going to happen in Russia. Nobody said anything worthwhile. I’ll tell you something else. A year before – 1988 there was a meeting between various experts on Russia. Yasha Kedmi was asked how many immigrants do you expect to come from the Soviet Union? He said not soon – 6,000.
Yuli: Kedmi?
Aryeh: Kedmi.
Yuli: We were talking about hundreds of thousands for many years already – we from inside Russia…
Aryeh: It was never talked about… Not only that but after I came back from Moscow, a year or two had passed and the big wave of immigration was coming to an end. There was a big meeting after the Americans’ decision not to trade with Russia and at that time the big wave of immigration was being exhausted already. Then again Yasha Kedmi got up and said the immigration from Russia is over because there are no more immigrants left there; that very few people were left there. It was also ridiculous… I always thought that there would be a going back and forth and that Russian Jews would organize their own life. Immigration or no immigration, they would organize their own life.
Yuli: You were not against local Jewish initiatives…
Aryeh: On the contrary, I was for it..
Yuli: The Lishka was against.
Aryeh: Of course. I was for it because I understood and knew absolutely for certain that the Jews had great weight – morally, economically and as an educated class not only as Jews; but also because there was a lot of inter-marriage. There were a lot of people living in Russia who were half-Jewish; partly Jewish. I saw this happening. I knew after this big immigration was over, that Russian Jewish life would be born again; would be re-born in Russia, grow and develop as it has.
Yuli: One question. How do you see Russian Jewry at the present time? Is it a separate social group dispersed all over the world? Does it have a continuation for many generations or will it just repeat the destiny of all those in your time left Russia and became American citizens; Israeli citizens; German Citizens etc.
Aryeh: Listen. I had contacts later with the Russian Jewish community. It cannot be described as a whole thing. There is no certain characteristic of the Russian Jews as Russian Jews. There are Russian Jews. There are Jews in Russia who are Jews; half Jews; quarter Jews… What I’m trying to say is that after the first World War and the Civil War and the terrible years, 70 years of Soviet communism, there’s a great weight of fantastic influence on the Russian Jewish people as there is on the Russian people as a whole. The Russian Jewish people have not been able to liberate themselves yet from the reflection of those terrible years before including the first and second world wars. The Russian Jewish community is different from other communities in the world. It does not have the influence and the presence of the American Jewish community or the French or the British communities. It is different because it suffered so much. It went through so much and yet because it is so rich – culturally, intellectually and from the other point of view it has suffered so much. All this suffering cannot be removed or wiped out within the few years that separates us today from 1991. It will take time. Another 20 years before the Russian Jews – if they want to will establish a community of Russian Jews as they have a community of Russian Jews in other countries.
Yuli: Do you mean only in Russia?
Aryeh: Yes.
Yuli: In the Ukraine there will be Ukrainian Russian Jews.
Aryeh: No. We don’t know what Ukraine is today. Do we know what Ukraine is today? Do we know what Ukraine is going to become in 10 years? Nobody knows. There is no difference today I think between the Russian Jews in the Ukraine and the Russian Jews in Russia. There was no great difference between them before I think.
Yuli: Before, yes. But now kids of Jews in the Ukraine are studying in Ukrainian schools studying the Ukrainian language; don’t study Russian language. They study Ukrainian culture. They are citizens of an independent Ukraine. They have to adjust themselves to a completely different environment. Like Russian Jews in Germany study German and German culture – finding themselves in a new environment.
Aryeh: This is what I’m saying. This is not for today. Today it is not yet an entirely different community. It might become a different community in ten or fifteen years. When those who study in schools in the Ukraine will grow up and will start playing a role. If the Ukraine continues being an independent country… If Putin today continues his policy, who knows what can happen? We have no knowledge at all what will happen in 10 -15 years. We have no knowledge because of many things that have nothing to do with the Ukraine. Ukraine is a very poor country because it’s an agricultural country and a country that does not have great resources and it is not an educated country. It is not a country educated in international business yet. All these things take time and we don’t know what’s going to happen in Russia. Do we know what’s going to happen in Russia? If Putin will replace Medvedev in a few years time as President the way it looks now then who knows what the fate of Russia will become. Will Kazakhstan remain independent? Will Uzbekistan remain independent? Do you know what’s happening in Uzbekistan?
Yuli: Me personally, no.
Aryeh: There is a tremendous for Islam in Uzbekistan. It might become a totally Islamic country. May be it will eventually force Russia and those people in Uzbekistan who are the head of the government today to go back to Russia. Who knows? Russia is running terrible dangers from its own Islamic population. The influence of Islam beyond its borders is growing daily. We don’t know anything about the future.
Yuli: I wonder really above the last question but I wonder what kind of energy and forces Islam had to expend so dramatically? It’s poor people, not educated, living on the 12th century; 10th century time and still they are penetrating all the Western society. What is the source of their force?
Aryeh: There is an example in history. The seventh century when Islam broke out of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula, it was nothing. 60,000 or 70,000 Islamic warriors who conquered Iran which was a great empire and had been a great empire for 600 to 700 years. It defeated them, a much greater army defeated and took Iran over and took Iraq over and then broke into North Africa and went into Europe. How come? Europe was already developed. What did they know? They knew nothing. It was a horde of wild people. Even the Koran was not the Koran yet in those days and yet inside of 100 they conquered the whole world outside Europe and this is exactly the situation today. Europe has become weak. You know what one of the Muslim Imams said in London, he said how can go against the British government that’s given you everything? He said these stupid British politicians in the British Parliament are stupid enough to give us everything we want and not chase us out of this country, then they’re stupid enough for us to take us over in 20 years. They’re saying this openly.
Yuli: That’s what strange about them. They’re saying a lot of things openly.
Aryeh: Openly. They can organize openly. A famous scientist said who knows the Middle East very well. It’s a forgone conclusion that by the end of this century Europe will become Islamic.
Yuli: I don’t believe it.
Aryeh: Many people say the Europeans have not reacted. They’re 20 or so million Muslims living in Europe.
Yuli: They have not reacted because it’s still not a force inside Europe.
Aryeh: Oh, yes, it is a force inside Europe. It is. Some people say there will be a lot of bloodshed. Look at what’s happening at the borders across the sea. Hundreds of thousands of people are crossing the Mediterranean Sea and landing in Greece, in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, in France.
Yuli: They’re running from poverty. They’re looking for jobs.
Aryeh: OK, but they can’t throw them out. They can’t prevent it.
Yuli: Remember the Second World War. They can do something. I thank you very much, Aryeh. It was very interesting. I hope that if I have additional questions; I hope I can call you and ask, even by phone.