The Huddled Masses: Jewish History in the Former Soviet Union: First-Hand Interviews with the Émigrés

By Harriet N. Kruman

Against a backdrop of persecution, repression, humiliation and rampant anti-Semitism, Jews from The Former Soviet Union suffered a long and tragic history as the proverbial scapegoats of any societal, philosophical or turf issues. They were at the mercy of the whims or political stance of consecutive autocratic rulers.

In 1979, a major phenomenon in Jewish history occurred when Soviet Jews, who were enslaved in a very real sense, began a struggle for freedom; they had defined goals to which the Jewish communities in United States and Israel responded, reaching out in tangible and effective ways on behalf of Soviet Jewry, beginning with our advocacy of human rights.

Kruman takes the reader back to the beginning of Jewish presence in what evolved into the country of Russia, then subsequently the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, leading to an understanding of what factors led to the creation of the USSR, as well as those which led to its demise, and how these factors affected Jewish life specifically.

Included are 14 personal interviews with Jews, now American citizens, caught up in the history of the Soviet Union, both fascinating and tragic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 13, 2008
• ISBN: 9781467865951

Harriet N. Kruman

Harriet N. Kruman has had extensive experience, on many levels, in the resettlement of Jews from the Former Soviet Union: she was the 1982 chair of The Women’s Plea for Soviet Jewry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a member of the Pittsburgh Conference for Soviet Jewry, with whom she visited the Soviet Union in 1990. Kruman has tutored Russian-speaking immigrants for over 25 years and has been the lay leader of The New Americans' Club of Congregation Beth Shalom in Pittsburgh. She has also been active and involved in leadership roles in her synagogue and on the national board of the Conservative Movement. She has written about and spoken to various groups on Soviet Jewry, as well the history of the Jews in Hungary. She and her husband live in Pittsburgh, she has one son, his wife and four grandchildren.

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Contents

THE NEW COLOSSUS

INTRODUCTION

THE HUDDLED MASSES

THE FIFTEEN FORMER

SOVIET STATES

THE INTERVIEWS

AFTERWORD

GLOSSARY

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

NOTES

THE NEW COLOSSUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The New Colossus

Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

Emma Lazarus 1889

FOR MY GRANDCHILDREN

Esther Bracha

Gavriel Dan

Naftali Yair

Eliora Chedva

whose Newman and Kruman great-great-grandparents

immigrated to the United States at the turn of the Twentieth Century,

and whose Reutlinger and Breslow great-grandparents

immigrated from nazi Germany to the United States just before World War II,

and to their parents,

Charlotte and Nathan Kruman,

who connected the generations.

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Map of Soviet Union

INTRODUCTION

In these oral histories, I hope to portray a sense of who the Jews from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), now the Former Soviet Union (FSU) are; what formed and influenced their lives, how they were affected by Soviet rule and who they are today. Initially, I was somewhat apprehensive in pursuing these stories in the event they would be too similar to be of interest to readers; however, I very quickly realized that although there are some similarities, there are significant differences. Reactions and recollections differ from person to person as a result of location, environment, attitudes, outside influences and, indeed, there were diverse personal experiences, so each story, in some ways, is unique. Regardless of the many twists and turns in each life, there were common threads running through each story: deprivation, anti-Semitism, grief, fear, frequently repression, and humiliation. Each history, each story, represents the life experiences of an individual caught up in the history of the Soviet Union.

A word about my research: finding subjects, the interviewees, was not difficult because of the large number of people I have known personally over the years, and in addition, I received referrals from friends who had read or knew about my project, and who referred me to someone whose story would be interesting. I have tried to present a cross-section of Jews from the FSU with respect to age, culture, ethnic and Jewish background, profession or trade. The stories I present are based solely on the interviews. I have been faithful to the facts, but have enhanced the text, for literary purposes only. I hope the subjects of these interviews, and all my friends from the FSU, will forgive my presumptuousness, my chutzpah, in attempting to analyze or evaluate issues and conditions under Soviet rule. I take responsibility and apologize for any misconceptions or errors, and I also ask their forgiveness for any misuse of Russian words. In addition, each subject and I have tried to sort the information chronologically, and have done so to the best of our ability. Where only a first name is given, without a photograph, these are persons who wish to remain anonymous; and the names used are fictitious.

Just as in any given segment of society, religion or nationality, there are sometimes flaws or weaknesses, but for the most part, Jews from the FSU have shown integrity and pride; they have high standards of conduct and principles and they possess great courage. It’s important to know that many of these new Americans do volunteer work; some in their synagogues, some at the JCC, some for other organizations, as their way of giving back to this country and showing their appreciation. Unfortunately, many American Jews in our communities have not taken the time to move beyond the language barrier and the cultural differences, and perhaps their own xenophobia, to know these new Americans, to see and understand who they are and to befriend them. It’s unfortunate that in the media Russians are usually portrayed as unsavory characters, shifty, devious, members of the Russian Mafia, or sometimes, pejoratively, as bumbling, peculiar and strange. In regard to most people, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The term Russian Jews should be clarified. It is frequently used erroneously to denote all Jews from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. And it is sometimes incorrectly used to designate citizens from any of the Soviet republics, but Russia was only one of the 15 republics in the USSR, although the largest in land and in population and the seat of the Communist government. Where I indicate Russia or Russian Jews, this refers only to the country of Russia, Jews from Russia itself, i.e., Moscow or St. Petersburg. The same applies to the Ukraine or Lithuania and the others; they were republics that were part of the USSR. Soviet Jews, or the Soviet Union, refer to any of the former republics. One can make the analogy that Americans are not all citizens of the United States, because of course, Canada and Mexico are in North America also, but we call ourselves, rightly so, Americans.

An interesting paradox is that in America, all Soviet Jews are called Russians; in the USSR, and then the FSU, they were and are called Jews; on Soviet passports the word JEW is stamped under Nationality. This actually turned out to be an asset, because JEW on a passport meant they were eligible to apply for immigration, since Jews were the only ones who could leave, starting in late 1970, as a result of pressure from United States and Israel. In the Soviet Union, when one was called Jew, it was almost always an expression of contempt, spit out as an invective.

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There is biblical text, not relating to immigration per se, but what Judaism says about the stranger: we read, And a stranger you shall not wrong, neither shall you oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 22, 20), and You shall not pervert the justice due to the stranger (Deut. 10, 18-19). Some scholars believe that the stranger meant one who had been converted to Judaism and some rabbinic comments clearly interpret this in that sense, but this can also pertain to those without rights, unprotected foreigners, and not only the converted, and they should also be treated with fairness, consideration and even affection. One cannot assume that these strictures are easy or instinctive. Since biblical times, most societies, at various times, have been suspicious of and aggressive toward strangers, but the Hebrew Bible commands that You shall love thy neighbor as yourself, and in at least 36 places, it commands us to love the stranger. There are further references: You shall not oppress a stranger; when a stranger lives with you in your land, do not ill-treat him; the stranger who lives with you shall be treated like the native-born. Love him as yourself…. Then of course, there’s the simplistic but accurate observation that in the United States, we were all strangers at one time, all immigrants, Jew and non-Jew. We have a short history in this country.

Of the émigrés I know, less than a handful have any relatives or friends still living in the FSU with whom they are in contact. There are, however, still many Jews who have chosen not to emigrate, for various reasons; most of my information on them is limited to what I am able to glean from the media, or from friends who returned to visit, and I know that whatever changes have occurred are regarded very pessimistically. One small case in point: I especially remember Kreshchatik Street very well from my visit to Kiev, lined on both sides by beautiful, tall and majestic trees; now the trees are gone, part of the road is used for parking junker cars. Along the street now there are tables with vendors selling literature, cheap art work, food, a sort of low-class outdoor market. Much of the literature peddled there is virulently anti-Semitic. Food is still a scarce commodity, politics are corrupt, unemployment is high, living conditions poor, and citizens are still contemptuous of the government and mistrustful of almost everybody.

Although there is free enterprise now, as I heard one television commentator say, free enterprise cannot succeed if there are no rules. In addition to ongoing problems with the economy and ethnic conflicts, the FSU now deals with about seven or eight different mafia-type groups of organized crime, labeled the Russian Mafia, or the Red Mafia, whose activities include intimidation by threat; terrorizing citizens by extortion; money laundering; fraud; smuggling. The price to pay for the lessening of stringent and restrictive rule is the emergence of the criminal world, far-reaching underworld dealings in illegal drugs, prostitution rings and pornography. There are ties with other countries, including United States, and their membership includes some Jews.

It is altogether a miracle that Jews survived life in the Soviet Union against all odds, both in the tsarist eras and the post-Revolution years, but at great cost. Untold numbers of Jews died in pogroms and civil actions through the ages, and many, many Jews were among the twenty million Soviets who died as a direct result of World War II. Some of their stories are heartbreaking - I found myself fighting back tears more than once - some are unfathomable, but at the same time, many related humorous situations and quaint anecdotes in the midst of the turbulence in their lives, which they have shared with me, all a testimonial to their resilient nature in the face of seemingly insurmountable repression and obstacles. I have learned and seen a great deal about what it was like to live under Soviet rule, but in hearing individual stories in depth, nothing could have prepared me for what I learned. In spite of this, through all of my interviews, I never heard any indication of despair or hopelessness; these remarkable people do not wallow in self-pity, and in whatever way they can, through whatever means open to them, they have proved their allegiance to this country and their affirmation of Judaism.

One cannot help but contemplate how different the history of European Jewry might have been if pressure had been exerted on our elected officials and on government agencies in the 1930s and 1940s, to intervene on behalf of European Jews, and if the organized Jewish communities of the world, and non-Jewish as well, had rallied and waged a relentless battle against the persecution and extermination of Jews before and during the Holocaust, as they subsequently did for the Jews from the Soviet Union and Ethiopia and, more recently, for citizens of Darfur.

My own long-time involvement with Jews from the FSU has helped me to understand the ways in which their lives intersected with Soviet history. I have included historical information in order that the reader can understand, first, those factors which led to the creation of the USSR, and those that led to its demise; its history as it related to Soviet Jews over the years; and to the radical changes in Jewish life after the 1917 Russian Revolution, to the present time. Their experiences differ in many respects from Jews in other countries in the Diaspora.

My intention was to provide highlights of the history, to more or less set the stage for what has been called The Plight of Soviet Jewry, but in trying to sort out the voluminous information from so many sources, everything seemed important to me, and I had great difficulty selecting and narrowing down the issues that were particularly germane to the subject of this book; therefore, these are - shall I say - a bit more than highlights, yet far from complete. I hope that this will be informative and enlightening to the reader. I also realized that the history of the lands in which Jews eventually lived, no matter how ancient, was very important because of the ways in which that history affected the lives of Jews for centuries to come; therefore, I have included brief histories of the 15 former Soviet republics.

I call the readers’ attention to the extensive Glossary at the end of the book, which defines all Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish words or phrases, organizations and acronyms I have used, which I believe less cumbersome than defining them as part of the text.

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THE HUDDLED MASSES

It is a documented fact that some concentration camp victims during World War II, although tortured and in great pain, willed themselves not to cry out, as an act of defiance to deprive the perpetrators of the vicarious thrill, the rush of adrenaline they experienced from watching Jews in pain and agony and dying. I believe this is analogous to the Soviets’ repression of the Jews: the only means of defiance, the only device the Soviet Jews had to resist their oppression was to emigrate, giving the Soviet government a black eye in the eyes of free nations, an embarrassment that so many of its citizens wanted to leave their mother country, depriving the Soviet government of the gratification of keeping their Jews as victims of anti-Semitism and as the proverbial scapegoats. When it became possible for the Jews to leave, they registered for permission in droves, albeit with great difficulty.

In some areas, such as the Ukraine, or in smaller towns or villages, and even in the shtetls, where the Jewish communities were large compared to the general population, Jews were comfortable with their Judaism, with their lifestyle and with their Jewish names; however, in large cities such as Moscow or St. Petersburg or Minsk or Kiev, it was very common to be the only Jew or Jewish family, or perhaps one of just a few, where one lived or worked or went to school, and this was not a comfortable position in which to find oneself. Frequently Jews in those larger cities used Russian names, a tactic to possibly avoid identification as Jews. (As an aside, an interesting aspect of Soviet names: instead of given middle names, men and women use patronynmics, formed by adding a suffix to their father’s first name, such as ovna for women and ovich for men, and there are others used as well, but these are the most common. If Sonia’s father’s name is Leonid Gelman, her name would be Sonia Leonidovna Gelman. If Dimitry’s father’s name is Boris Halpern, his name would be Dimitry Borisovich Halpern. In their culture, in addressing others, the patrilineal name is important and is always used as a form of respect. In my involvement with the former Soviet Jews, I know many instances in which new émigrés, in an effort to integrate into American society and culture, have abandoned their beautiful Russian names and have taken typically American names, such as: Genya became Jane or Jean; Dimitry became Jim; Raisa became Ruth or Rose; Ekatarina became Kathy or Kate.)

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There are several hundred national and ethnic names used today by people in Russia and in its former republics, to identify the group to which they belong. Some of them are self-designated groups, which they identify as nations. The history of the periodic and sometimes frequent conflicts between the ethnic groups and nationalities is well known.

Of the 15 republics of the USSR, the predominant populace, except for Russia itself, did not consider themselves Russian, and in fact, other languages were predominant. In 1991, with the dissolution of the USSR, those republics became independent, and while this may have been seen as a good thing, it was usually not beneficial for the Jews. The issue of nationality and language has always held great social and political significance. When there are societal and philosophical problems, or turf disputes, when the economy is bad, when ethnic passions are out of control, or when nationalism is running high, the Jews are targeted as the source of the problems. The Jews have a long and tragic history of being treated as the scapegoats. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, and sometimes with sudden changes in borders, the republics, no longer constrained by a strong central power, flexed their muscles and pointed to the Jews. This is just part of the backdrop for the circumstances under which Jews lived after the Soviet dissolution.

Considering the history of anti-Semitism, pogroms, violence, repression and the high number of Jews who died in those states as a result of the Holocaust and the war, the numbers of Jews still living in former republics is surprising. At the end of the book is a chart which lists each republic, changes in some of the names, the population of Jews in 1939, for those I could find; the general population in 2005; and the Jewish population in 2005, from a report of a census taken from The 2005 Jewish Population of the World. I should point out that because of the traditional mistrust of authorities, whether in the USSR or the FSU, the validity of censuses may be questionable. Some Soviets used very innovative and elaborate methods to avoid being counted, thinking perhaps, If they don’t know I’m here maybe they won’t bother me, and this undoubtedly results in some distortion in the figures. Another factor could be the quality of the census process. For the most part, in checking numerous sources and websites, I found the discrepancies in population figures fairly minor. So while the figures may be skewed or incorrect, they seem to coincide with other records and charts, which may, of course, be incorrect as well. Interestingly, in doing research for this book, I found an old report I gave at a Tutor Training and Orientation Session in 1990 for potential tutors in the Exodus Campaign. At that time it was estimated that there were 2,500,000 Jews in the USSR, and in the 2005 census included here, there were 1,019,090 which, if correct, means that between 1990 and 2005, there were 1,480,910 Jews who either left Russia and the former Soviet republics or died. But of course Soviet Jews started leaving the Soviet Union in 1979, and the number who left between 1979 and 1990 are not reflected in the chart. From these numbers, however, one gets a picture of the immense presence Jews had been in the FSU.

There was a tremendous loss of Soviet lives during World War II, and I wanted to include in the chart, statistics of the Jews in the USSR before World War II, the pre-war population for approximately 1939, the number of annihilations and percentage of the population those deaths represent. I found it completely daunting. I researched the statistics for deaths related to the Holocaust in Norah Levin’s The Holocaust 1973; Lucy Dawidowicz: The War Against the Jews 1975; Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of the European Jews 1961; and Gerald Reitlinger: The Final Solution 1953. Their calculations all differ from each other, to various extents, yet each ends up with six million. The reason for this difference created the problem. In trying to break that number apart to determine the deaths in each of the Soviet states, one source considers prewar borders, another does not; one includes the Baltic States, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, as one entity, another does not; one breaks Russia down into White Russia and the Ukraine, one does not. Therefore, I decided against including what might be misleading or incorrect information in the chart. It is more important to remember that although some Jews from the Soviet Union were captured by the German army when they overran Russia, and were imprisoned or killed, and many were killed in actual battle, some were actually imprisoned or killed by the USSR itself. One thing is certain: six million Jews, indeed, were murdered; 20 million citizens of the Soviet Union indeed were killed or died as a direct result of World War II. Of the 20 million, it is hard to ascertain how many were Jews, although we know it was an extremely high number. For reasons stated above, it is virtually impossible to break this down minutely or accurately; it is quite enough to know the dreadful cost in lives of Soviet Jews.

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Prior to the first influx of Soviet Jews in 1979, SAVE SOVIET JEWRY banners were proudly displayed on the buildings of synagogues and Jewish agencies and organizations in most Jewish communities in this country. The Save Soviet Jewry campaign was the result of the acquisition of specific knowledge and awareness of the plight of the Jews in the USSR, where they were subjected to overt anti-Semitism; they were oppressed, persecuted, imprisoned and murdered. Then in 1979, a major phenomenon in Jewish history occurred when Soviet Jews, who were enslaved in a very real sense, began a struggle for freedom with the hope of raising generations of free children. They had defined goals and a purpose, to which the Jewish communities in United States and Israel responded, and whose citizens were mobilized on their behalf, reaching out in tangible and effective ways. We had the unprecedented opportunity to share in the shaping of world events through efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry, beginning with our advocacy of human rights.

A large immigration was activated, and at that time, Soviet Jews were considered refugees because they were deemed to be victims of persecution, and United States and Israel received them in large numbers; however, the Soviet Union, at that time, made it very difficult for them to emigrate. Those who applied, the refuseniks and dissidents, had to deal with many obstacles imposed by their government. They were harassed; they became victims of serious threats, many carried out, and they lived in great fear for themselves and their children. Most lost their jobs, and if they were fortunate enough to have family members with an apartment, they had to move in with them, with perhaps five or six people living in one or two rooms. Otherwise, they were assigned a room somewhere, sometimes living with a number of other tenants in one room.

The immigration process was very slow, some people waiting years for permission to leave, during which time they were singled out for severe discrimination, causing psychological and emotional distress, and they were treated as outcasts. Having been fired from their jobs, in typical Russian mentality, the Jews were then accused, and sometimes imprisoned, for hooliganism or for being parasites, because they had no jobs (a Soviet classification for any able-bodied person unemployed for two months or more). They were known to Jews around the world as Prisoners of Zion living under increasingly repressive conditions.

An enigma and it relates to the Hitler era as well, and to any other countries where Jews were not welcome, where they were persecuted: why didn’t these nations just let the Jews leave, (Germany did, but only for a short time) let them immigrate? - or even force them to leave, which might have seemed cruel to the Jews at the time, but in retrospect might have saved their lives, provided of course, that there were enough countries that would let them in at that time, and this is questionable. So the question answers itself: it was a no-win situation. In a video on the Internet, I found in film clips from The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archives, a remarkable segment devoted to The Public Council for Soviet Jews, recorded before the large exodus of Soviet Jews. A young, articulate woman says in English: If I am so hated, let me go.

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The Soviets lived according to a structured program; most never really owned anything, were never in any independent enterprise. In consequence, good work habits didn’t matter; they didn’t feel there would be any benefits or rewards, so for many there was a lack of incentive for creativity or achievement. Because the ordinary citizen felt powerless against this system, they had a poorly developed sense of personal responsibility and initiative, and frequently the system was inefficient and, therefore, did not work smoothly. Although workers feared the consequences of their own actions, they were not particularly motivated to excel or to achieve greater production. I hasten to add that this did not apply to everyone; many were conscientious workers and earned the respect of their employers and fellow employees, and more important, had a sense of self-esteem, but conformity was instilled into every Soviet from birth, so in most cases, employees did exactly what they were told to do, nothing more and nothing less.

The people learned that Communism was not an ideology, but rather an oppressive political system. That ideology and system did nothing to better the lives and well-being of most of its citizens. In spite of the corrupt and repressive system, there is a great deal of importance attached to culture and education. The citizens are products of a public school system which exceeds ours in a number of ways. The Soviet Union, and now Russia specifically, has had a