By Zvi Gitelman

S

oviet policy toward the Jews can best be understood when viewed not simply in terms of specifically "Jewish policies" but rather in the wider context of general policies that have peculiar effects on Soviet Jewry-a group whose religion is tribal rather than ecumenical, whose culture presents unique difficulties for Soviet ideology, and whose extraterritoriality poses problems different from those posed by any other ethnic groups in the USSR. This is not to say that there are no policies specifically aimed at the Jews; indeed, there is striking evidence that in some key areas of Soviet life-notably, politics, culture and educationJews are denied the rights or opportunities enjoyed by citizens of other nationalities.

This article will examine the three principal aspects of the Jewish problem in the USSR: religion, antisemitism, and assimilation as a key to the future of the Soviet Jewish community. This approach, it is hoped, will serve to bring into sharper focus both the similarities and the significant differences between the status and treatment of the Jews on the one hand, and of other ethnic and religious minorities on the other.

Mr. Gitelman is an Associate in the Department of Government at Columbia College and a Junior Fellow of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs, Columbia University.

To begin with, there is little question that the Jewish religion is on the decline in the USSR, perhaps more rapidly than other religions. While it is difficult to estimate the number of believing Jews (some Soviet sources have put it as high as 500,000), it is a fact that only about 60 synagogues remain open in the entire Soviet Union whereas the Belorussian Republic alone had some 500 synagogues or houses of study in the late 1920's.1 The overwhelming majority or worshippers are in their sixties and seventies. There is a lack of religious articles and, just as importantly, of religious functionaries. There is no Yeshiva (religious seminary) in Moscow-or anywhere else in the Soviet Union.

To some extent, the decline of the Jewish faith is part of a general decline of religion in the USSR. A poll conducted by Komsomolskaia pravda's Institute of Public Opinion in 1961 revealed that the majority of Soviet youth considered adherence

1 This figure is cited in the Minsk Yiddish daily Oktiabr, February 1, 1929. Despite the extremely militant anti-religious campaign of the 1920's conducted by the Yevsektsiia, or Jewish Section of the Communist Party, the number of synagogues had declined only from 1,034 in 1917 to 934 in 1929-30. The number of rabbis in the Ukraine had fallen from 1,049 in 1914 to 830 in 1929-30. All in all, 646 synagogues had been seized since the Revolution. American Jewish Yearbook 5690, Philadelphia, 1930, p. 68-9, and AJYB 5691, p. 118. In contrast, 354 of 450 remaining synagogues were seized between 1956 and 1963.

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to a religious faith among the lesser "social evils.' Workers and members of the intelligentsia have manifested a similar indifference, although there have recently been signs that some among the intelligentsia and youth have begun exploring Russian religious tradition and more exotic religious and metaphysical doctrines in what may be described as "a search for the meaning of life."

This general decline of religious belief in the Soviet Union has of course been largely a product of the anti-religious policies of the Communist regime, but in part it also reflects a widespread trend toward secularization that was already becoming noticeable in Russia-among Jews as well as others even before the Revolution, and that has been evident still longer in most other European societies. In England, for example, 152 out of every thousand persons were enrolled in the Anglican Church forty years ago, whereas in 1964 the number had dropped to 81.3 In Denmark today, only two percent of the population attend church with some regularity; and in Sweden, about four percent. But in the Soviet Union, the process of secularization was sharply accelerated by the antireligious campaigns of the 1920's and, to an equal if not greater extent, by the industrialization and urbanization of the 1930's.

Seculari

ecularization has perhaps affected the Jews more than it has other religious groups because of the fact that they are very highly urbanized and tend to concentrate in the larger cities, precisely where it is most difficult to practice religion and where religion tends to be weakest. A recent survey taken in Belorussia showed that, of eleven population samples in various cities and towns, the Jewish sample (taken in the town of Bobruisk) revealed 98.5 percent of the respondents declaring themselves atheists, whereas the average for the other ten samples was only 65.1 percent. Even allowing for the methodological shortcomings of the survey and the probability that Jews were more reluctant than others to declare themselves believers, this finding seems a significant indication of the declining religiousness of the Soviet Jewish community. It should be noted here that certain.

2 Cited in Bohdan Bociurkiw, "Religion and Soviet Society," Survey (London), July, 1966.

3 New York Times, Dec. 14 and 18, 1966. Prichiny sushchestvovaniia i puti preodoleniia religioznykh perezhitkov, Minsk, 1965, p. 40.

Jewish religious forms and festivals retain a special meaning for nationally-conscious Jewish youth, even though atheist, since they have a national historical significance independent of theor theological content; thus, Passover is observed in some form by many non-believers, who celebrate it rather as a holiday of national liberation.

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Official persecution has also been an important factor in the decline of the Jewish religion, and while it has extended to other religions as well, the evidence seems to indicate that the Jewish religion has been harassed with greater zeal and subjected to greater deprivations than other faiths. The officially-tolerated Orthodox Church has about 8,000 places of worship open; it is allowed to print Bibles and prayer books, to manufacture candles, crucifixes and icons, and to publish a monthly religious journal and an annual yearbook; it has five seminaries and two academies for higher theological education. For some 540,000 Soviet Baptists, there are 5,500 Baptist churches; there is an All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists, which functions as a central administration coordinating church activities and publishes a magazine, Bratskii vestnik; and the Baptists are also printing a Bible for their adherents. By contrast, the 2,268,000 Soviet Jews have only 60 synagogues; they have no central religious organization and no magazine or journal; they have been permitted to publish only 3,000 copies of a prayer book (and that in 1958), and none of the Bible. Soviet rabbis have consistently been denied permission to attend European rabbinical conferences, and no Soviet Jews have been allowed to train abroad for the rabbinate, whereas Soviet Moslems have occasionally been permitted to make pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina, and gifted Soviet Moslem students to receive training in the seminaries of Cairo, Damascus and Morocco."

field of religion. The Orthodox Church itself is constantly under fire but seems better able to survive. This is explained by the paradox that the Church is both more trusted and more feared than the synagogue. It is the largest and politically best adapted religious group in the country. Its ties with churches abroad are above suspicion and, indeed, are manipulated by the Soviet regime for its own ends. For many years now, Church leaders have successfully collaborated with the regime. In contrast, in the eyes of the Soviets, the synagogue has its main centers abroad, and in unfriendly countries at that. The Soviets see the synagogue as promoting extra-Soviet loyalties centered in Israel and the United States. Since the Jewish religion is essentially identified with a particular nationality rather than being ecumenical, and since its content is judged to promote national sentiments which focus on Israel, the Jewish religion cannot be trusted as much as the Orthodox faith.

On the other hand, the Jewish religious community is not feared as much as the Orthodox congregation of the faithful. The sheer number of adherents to the Orthodox faith makes that church a far more powerful social force-a potential pressure group than religious Jewry. It has to be handled more gingerly, and it is. Because Soviet Jews generally are less secure and more fearful than most non-Jews, it is easier to dissuade them from adhering to and maintaining religious practices and affiliations. A few visits by the local party propagandist are enough to persuade a Jewish worker that his chances for promotion are seriously harmed by synagogue attendance.

Antisemitism and Jewish Culture

The question of antisemitism is a more complex and difficult one. Ethnic identification is important in the Soviet Union not only in official transactions but also in social intercourse. An application for admission to a university must indicate both the applicant's citizenship and his nationality. Internal passports carried by all Soviet citizens and produced in most official transactions-have the nationality of their owners clearly stamped on them. Traditional national rivalries have survived all the propaganda about druzhba narodov, or friendship of peoples. But most of the nationalities, even those less numerous than the Jews, have their own territories, where the official language is their own and where most officials are of their nationality. The

8

Soviet Jewish citizen has no such home, Birobidzhan notwithstanding. Thus, as so often in the past, the Jew is once again the eternal stranger, subject to sundry disabilities. Many an Ukrainian resents the Jewish official in "his" republic. Since Jews tend to assimilate most often into the Russian culture, rather than into the native culture of a nonRussian area, they are further suspect as agents of Russification. In areas such as the Ukraine and Moldavia, where there is a long tradition of antisemitism, Jews are damned both for being ethnically Jewish and for being culturally Russian.

Many Jews, particularly the very old and the young, unhesitatingly acknowledge the existence of societal antisemitism. Just as Negro slaves once saw themselves as akin to persecuted Children of Israel, so now do some Soviet Jews see their situation as analogous to that of the Negroes in America. And, indeed, the parallels are striking: American Negroes and Soviet Jews are highly represented in the art and entertainment fields, but are virtually excluded from the political elite. American Negroes and Soviet Jews are faced with the problem of acceptance by and integration into the surrounding societies, while trying to maintain a distinct identity whose content and essence are as yet undefined. American Negro and Soviet Jewish youth are both in rebellion against what they see as the timidity and subservience of their elders.

Yet there are important differences in the situations of these two ethnic minorities. Perhaps the most crucial difference is the official attitude displayed toward these groups by the governments of the countries in which they reside. While both anti-Negro prejudice in the United States and antisemitic prejudice in the Soviet Union are most virulent at the local level, the American federal government has unequivocally pursued a policy designed to lessen and eventually abolish altogether both official and social prejudice against Negroes. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the attitude of the Soviet central government toward the Jews.

8 The remote region of Birobidzhan, in eastern Siberia, was designated for Jewish settlement in 1928 and in 1934 was officially declared a Jewish Autonomous Oblast. In 1936, the total Jewish population, including some Jewish Communists from abroad, was 14,000. But the purges of 1937 and 1948 destroyed first the intellectual leadership of the community, then every organ of Jewish culture and education. By 1959 the Jews represented 8.8 percent of the population, or 14,269 out of 162,856 inhabitants. Though the official language of the oblast is Yiddish, there have been no Jewish schools, or Yiddish classes, since 1948. The thrice-a-week newspaper and the broadcasting of a few Yiddish songs by the radio are all that remain.

The destruction of Jewish cultural institutions

sue a deliberate, high-level policy which singles Jews out for discrimination in all areas of Soviet life. But it is pursuing a policy of repressing the potential development, or resuscitation, of Jewish culture. And it does tolerate, and thus tacitly approve, antisemitism among middle and lower-level officials and in society as a whole. What is the rationale for this policy?

Soviet nationality policy is dualistic: it seeks to promote the culture of backward nationalities and, at the same time, to push many national cultures toward a merger with the Great Russian. This Stalinist dialectic posits as its final synthesis the “drawing together" and even the "merging" of all the cultures into one supranational culture. Since the Jewish people are politically and culturally weak, and geographically dispersed, the repressive arm of nationality policy can be raised against them. They feel only one of the two contradictory thrusts of Soviet policy. Furthermore, individual members of the Soviet apparatus, especially at the lower and middle levels, are often antisemitically inclined, especially in regions where antisemitism has strong native roots.

It is entirely possible, indeed probable, judging by statements made by Khrushchev," that these inclinations exist also among high-level Soviet leaders, since their backgrounds and sociological characteristics are not very different from those of lower-level functionaries. However, because top leaders must have the broadest perspectives and must strive for objective evaluations and judgments, they must try not to let irrational considerations govern their decisions and actions. At the same time, official attitudes and policies have once again made antisemitism acceptable in the USSR, and the regime is doing little to combat it. Each of these assertions requires close examination.

9 Khrushchev told a group of French socialists that "in all ages, the Jews have preferred the artisan trades. . . But if you take the building trades or metallurgy, you can't find a single Jew to my knowledge. They don't like collective work, group discipline, they have always preferred to be dispersed." Le Figaro (Paris), April 9, 1958. J. B. Salsberg, a former Canadian Communist leader, was told by Khrushchev that "after the liberation of Czernowitz the streets were dirty. When the Jews were asked why the strets were not being cleaned, they replied that the non-Jewish population which used to do this work had fled the city. Of the thousands of Soviet citizens who have toured abroad only three failed to return. All of them were Jews. Wherever a Jew settles, the first thing he does is build a synagogue." J. B. Salsberg, "Talks with Soviet leaders on the Jewish Question," Jewish Life (Toronto), February 1957.

Practically all Jewish schools were closed 1938. Only one Yiddish daily survived the war and it was closed down in 1948, as were all Yiddish publications and publishing houses. The Jewish AntiFascist Committee, the sole remaining central organization of Soviet Jews, was also dissolved in 1948. Most of the leading Yiddish writers were arrested. In August 1952, nearly thirty of them were shot in Moscow. Thus, the cultural situation today is not the creation of the post-Stalin leadership. But the maintenance of that situation is their responsibility. There is not a single Yiddish or Hebrew school anywhere in the USSR for two and a half million Jews, although there are schools in their native languages for the 6,300 Koriaks— who form 0.005 percent of the population of the USSR for the 12,000 Chukchi, for the 19,000 Khant, etc. 10 In the Ukraine, there are 99 Hungarian-language schools for the 149,000 Hungarians who form 0.4 percent of the population of the Ukraine; yet for the one million Jews forming two percent of the population, there is not a single Yiddish school.11 While 33 books, three periodicals and 13 newspapers were published in Udmurt in 1964, only two books, one periodical and one newspaper-the two-page, thrice-a-week birobidzhaner shtern-appeared in Yiddish.12 The 1,619,000 Germans in the USSR have two daily newspapers, a weekly and a literary journal, in addition to radio. and television programs in German and German schools serving at least 33,000 pupils.13

The appearance of the journal sovetish heimland in 1961 (after 13 years of total suppression of Yiddish culture) and the publication of a few Yiddish books represent concessions to public opinion abroad and do not signify a reversal of basic policy. The argument that the Jews themselves have no interest in a revival of Jewish culture is a specious one, and the Soviets themselves have been soft-pedaling this claim of late. Soviet writers have consistently stressed the policy of striving for "sblizhenie”—drawing together—or even “sliianie”—merging of national cultures. (See article by Mr. Hodnett elsewhere in this issue-Ed.) Seen as two phases of an historically inevitable

10 See Kulturnoe stroitelstvo RSFSR, Moscow, 1958, pp. 206209.

11 Pedagogicheskii slovar, Moscow, 1960, V. II, p. 509. 12 Pechat v SSSR v 1964 godu, Moscow, 1964.

13 Jews in Eastern Europe, Vol. III, No. 5, (October 1966), pp. 10-15.

field of religion. The Orthodox Church itself is constantly under fire but seems better able to survive. This is explained by the paradox that the Church is both more trusted and more feared than the synagogue. It is the largest and politically best adapted religious group in the country. Its ties with churches abroad are above suspicion and, indeed, are manipulated by the Soviet regime for its own ends. For many years now, Church leaders have successfully collaborated with the regime. In contrast, in the eyes of the Soviets, the synagogue has its main centers abroad, and in unfriendly countries at that. The Soviets see the synagogue as promoting extra-Soviet loyalties centered in Israel and the United States. Since the Jewish religion is essentially identified with a particular nationality rather than being ecumenical, and since its content is judged to promote national sentiments which focus on Israel, the Jewish religion cannot be trusted as much as the Orthodox faith.

On the other hand, the Jewish religious community is not feared as much as the Orthodox congregation of the faithful. The sheer number of adherents to the Orthodox faith makes that church a far more powerful social force-a potential pressure group than religious Jewry. It has to be handled more gingerly, and it is. Because Soviet Jews generally are less secure and more fearful than most non-Jews, it is easier to dissuade them from adhering to and maintaining religious practices and affiliations. A few visits by the local party propagandist are enough to persuade a Jewish worker that his chances for promotion are seriously harmed by synagogue attendance.

Antisemitism and Jewish Culture

The question of antisemitism is a more complex and difficult one. Ethnic identification is important in the Soviet Union not only in official transactions but also in social intercourse. An application for admission to a university must indicate both the applicant's citizenship and his nationality. Internal passports carried by all Soviet citizens and produced in most official transactions-have the nationality of their owners clearly stamped on them. Traditional national rivalries have survived all the propaganda about druzhba narodov, or friendship of peoples. But most of the nationalities, even those less numerous than the Jews, have their own territories, where the official language is their own and where most officials are of their nationality. The

8

Soviet Jewish citizen has no such home, Birobidzhan notwithstanding. Thus, as so often in the past, the Jew is once again the eternal stranger, subject to sundry disabilities. Many an Ukrainian resents the Jewish official in "his" republic. Since Jews tend to assimilate most often into the Russian culture, rather than into the native culture of a nonRussian area, they are further suspect as agents of Russification. In areas such as the Ukraine and Moldavia, where there is a long tradition of antisemitism, Jews are damned both for being ethnically Jewish and for being culturally Russian.

Many Jews, particularly the very old and the young, unhesitatingly acknowledge the existence of societal antisemitism. Just as Negro slaves once saw themselves as akin to persecuted Children of Israel, so now do some Soviet Jews see their situation as analogous to that of the Negroes in America. And, indeed, the parallels are striking: American Negroes and Soviet Jews are highly represented in the art and entertainment fields, but are virtually excluded from the political elite. American Negroes and Soviet Jews are faced with the problem of acceptance by and integration into the surrounding societies, while trying to maintain a distinct identity whose content and essence are as yet undefined. American Negro and Soviet Jewish youth are both in rebellion against what they see as the timidity and subservience of their elders.

Yet there are important differences in the situations of these two ethnic minorities. Perhaps the most crucial difference is the official attitude displayed toward these groups by the governments of the countries in which they reside. While both anti-Negro prejudice in the United States and antisemitic prejudice in the Soviet Union are most virulent at the local level, the American federal government has unequivocally pursued a policy designed to lessen and eventually abolish altogether both official and social prejudice against Negroes. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the attitude of the Soviet central government toward the Jews.

8 The remote region of Birobidzhan, in eastern Siberia, was designated for Jewish settlement in 1928 and in 1934 was officially declared a Jewish Autonomous Oblast. In 1936, the total Jewish population, including some Jewish Communists from abroad, was 14,000. But the purges of 1937 and 1948 destroyed first the intellectual leadership of the community, then every organ of Jewish culture and education. By 1959 the Jews represented 8.8 percent of the population, or 14,269 out of 162,856 inhabitants. Though the official language of the oblast is Yiddish, there have been no Jewish schools, or Yiddish classes, since 1948. The thrice-a-week newspaper and the broadcasting of a few Yiddish songs by the radio are all that remain.