12—THE BULLETIN—Thursday, January 13, 1977
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A y@€gr ago Br§t@ii«'§
^m® d€iy§ m th© Sovi@t Union, tslking 9® Jewish community and to government officiois. Although he Sstes
impressions OS in
he oiso sounded more optimistic than most Jewish activists about the prospects of Jewish life in Soviet Russia. Here he of fers a reassessment of his Russian visit.
LOCATIONS THROUGHOUT
LONDON —The painful scars left in me by my visit to the
Soviet Union are scarcely less fresh today than when I returned from there a year ago. Since then my life has not been, and nor is it likely ever to be, quite the same again. Hardly a day goes by without the visit featuring agonisingly in my thoughts and activities, in my private conversations and public addresses.
When I meet Jewish children - and I have seen them by the thousands during the past year at Jewish schools in Britain, in South Africa and in America -a lump sticks in my throat as I tell them that, throughout my travels among Soviet Russia's three largest Jewish communities, I saw only one Jew child. And that was in a private home in Moscow, where he tearfully pleaded with me to help him secure an exit-visa to be reunited with his mother.
When I consecrate new synagogues, or install rabbis, or attend Bar-Mitzvah or wedding parties, I constantly remind myself and my audiences that for 60 years not a single new synagogue has been opened in Russia, no rabbis have been ordained, and no open gathering of Jews for social, cultural or religious celebrations has been officially tolerated.
AGAINST THIS stark background of. spiritual starvation, our own freedom to live as Jews . without hindrance is all the more to be valued. But by the same token, I feel ashamed and challenged by our failure to use this freedom to the full. The heroism I witnessed among Jewish intellectuals in Russia, who were prepared to sacrifice and risk everything in their quest to be reunited with our people and our faith, probably constitutes the only genuinely voluntary Jewish martyrdom since the Middle Ages.
Aliyah is decreasing from Western countries, where more and more Jewish children are not getting a Jewish education and assimilation is more of a blight than in Russia. This indictment was stressed by several Russian Jews and it haunted my conscience after the visit, to the point of beclouding the campaigns for Soviet Jewry with an uncomfortable feeling of unreality, if not a measure of hypocrisy.
NOW FOR AN assessment of the visit, in terms of results and repercussions, from the vantage point of a year. By penetrating for the first time at an official level what was previously an impenetrable barrier between the Jewries of the East and the West, it established invaluable contacts with all identifiable groups of Jews and with the Soviet authorities, and opened up numerous lines of communication. These have since been strengthened, notably during a second visit to Moscow by the executive director of my office, who met Jewish activists, synagogue leaders and Ministry of Cult& officials.
The early rumblings of criticism, often by partisan interests which preferred the simplicity of black-and-white assessments to the complexity of the situation which I discovered and reported, have largely subsided. Most significantly, the argument it engendered on whether to concentrate exclusively on "Let My People Go" or, as I urged, to add "Let My People Live" as Jews, with equal concern for those who
would not go, has now generally been conceded. My stand has been vindicated, and it is supported by the clamor for greater religious,- cultural and educational rights by leading Jewish activists in Russia and in Israel, and by responsible organizations that campaign for Soviet Jewry.
Through the widespread publicity given to the visit in the mass media in Britain and a-broad, it also succeeded in focusing public attention on the plight and disabilities of Soviet Jewry. Government and church leaders, as well as many journalists and other "opinion-makers" who might have been unresponsive to the more routine methods of protest and demonstration, were made aware of the realities of the situation.
SUBSTANTIAL HOPES of amelioration were raised by my official hosts before, during and after the visit. Biased on the discussion I had with senior Soviet officials, I was invited to submit detailed proposals. These ranged from specific requests relating to religious and educational facilities within Soviet law, to appeals for selected exit permits and release from imprisonment in hardship cases. Since then, I have received repeated assurances, from Moscow, that these requests were under consideration and that some "positivie responses" colild be anticipated.
Some promises have indeed begun to be fulfilled. About one-third of the visas requested, for individuals who had waited for
over five years for permissioi to emigrate, have been granted There have also been a few othei
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