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CHANUKKAH IN

Last Shabbat morning my wife and I walked through the snow-covered streets of Moscow, past the Kremlin, to the Great Synagogue in Archipova Street. We entered quickly to unfregze. Inside, it was warm and bright and three-quarters

_full, with well over 300 béftallited males duvvening away in the pews below and about 50 members of the femaie species sitting inconspicuously in the gallery

‘ \ above. It might have been an Orthodox synagogue in , Manchester or Leeds

1,..1. buf for three facts: that some of the men wore fur hats; that the Ark was flanked by two huge tablets bearing the text, in Hebrew and Russian, of a prayer for the

Government of the Union of SoViet Socialist Republics; and that one concession had been made to modernity in the form of an amplification system which was turned ofi a few decibels too loud.

From time to time, when the chazzan's voice was nevertheless drowned by the volume of conversation, an angry official called for order; and at one point he demanded silence for the rabbi - a gnome with an ample white beard who would have looked perfect on a troika drawn by reipdeer - who proceeded to intone the

Hallel with responses from a well rehearsed male voice choir. There followed a sermon in Yiddish, during which half thg men remained standing, apparently in

eager anticipation of a speedy end. After that the Scrolls were taken out, and

then the proceedings dissolved into chaos as all the worshippers, instead of

listening to the cantillation of the Holy Sciiptures, reverted to their inter;

rupted conversations. when it became obvious that even the officiél had re-

'éigned himself to the inevitablel my wife and I decided by a mutual glance that

the time was opportuée to leave, On my way out, an emaciated old man, who had

guessed that I was a foreign visitor, asked me for my tallit, which I was glad

to give him. COLLEGE \» LIBRAR _ 2 _

That congregation represented only one element of Soviet Jewry. It is a very small one, for though the synagogue was well attended, one fias to réfiember that it is virtually the only one in Moscow, with a Jewish population of well over

250,000 and therefore comparable to that of Greater London, which has about

200 synagogues! It is also a dwindling element, for it consists almost entirely of old people, born before the Revolution, who have never doubted that, Marx or no Marx, the old rituals must be carried on.

Is it surprising that this element should be so small? Not in the leasti

Even before the Revolution many Jews had turned away from religion. Some of

Jewish national them hag become Maskilim,

Palestine. Others had become ardent Marxists and supporters of the Revolution; and in the ear;y days of the Soviet regime there was a Jewish section of the

Communist Party, known as the Yevsektsiya, which was itself instrumental in the discouragement of Jewish religious life and the conversion of many synagogues into workers' clubs and cinemas. And now, for 62 years, it has been Government policy to ridicule, discredit and suppress religion in all its forms. In these circumstances what is surprising is that Jewish religious life has P§rfififeA’at all.

Another major factor is the Antisgmitism which has always pervaded Russian society. We all know about the pogroms in the closing decades of the Czarist era. One of the last and most savage of these occurred at Kishinev in 1903, a date which jumped into my mind as séon as we were told that the room assigned to us in the Intourist Hotel was, By coincidence, Number 1903. And though

Antisemitism was officially outlawed by the Soviet Constitution, we all know that it soon raised its ugly head again. It was at its worst during the Black

Years of Stalinism, beginning with the wholesale massacre of Jewish intellectuals -3- in 1948 and ending with the so—called Doctors' Plot in 1953. But it has never ceased to be a feature of Soviet attitfides, béth official and finofficial, per— vading the press, as well as radio and television, and the literature allowed to be published, and restricting the opportunities for Jews to rise to high positions in the professions. In recent years, moreover, it has been reinforced by a virulent campaign against , itself a product of the Government's policy to increase its influeqéé in the Arab world. At present Antisemitism seems to be again on the increase; for though the Soviet Government has made some well publicised concessions to Yiddish culture, no doubt to make a favourable im- pression on the outside world in anticipation of the Olympic Games, what really affects Soviet Jews is that it has now become virtually impossible for thefi £0 get7into any major university.

For 62 years, therefore, Soviet Jews havé been daily bombarded with a negative image, not only of religion, but of Judaism and Zionism and of everything that pertains to the Jewish people with the sole exception, from time to time, of a secular, Birobidzhan-based Yiddish culture. It is no wonder, therefore, that the overwhelming majority of them have ceased to be Jewish in any significant sense. Hundreds of thousands, I would guess, have simply merged into Soviet v~/*\ / society by registering, not as Jews, but as Russians, Uig}hgq«§.};flkfgnfiygnk; or any of the 110 nationalities which comprise the population. Many more, perhaps as many as two million, although still described as Jews on their passports, are totally ignorant of their Jewish heritage and have no positive attitude towards it. We didn't meet any of these people. In the nature of the case, one doesn't meet them. But they pose by far the greatest challenge to those of us who care for the perpetuation of Judaism.

Whom, then, did we meet, apart from the surviving remnant of the pre—Soviet past in the Great Synagogue? The answer, in a word, is the refuseniks. iflaeed,

I \ - h - to establish contact with them was the main purpose of our visit, sponsored by the Soviet Jewry Group of our Synagogue.

What then are refuseniks? Strictly speaking, they are persons who have applied for permission to emigrate from the 'fE order to be re-united with close relations in the State of Israel, that being the\gnly ground on which such applications are now considered, and who have been refused. Of course, having been refused, they re-apply, and if they are lucky their applications will be reconsidered after a lapse of three or four years. Some of them have been waiting for ten years and more.

But closely associated with the refuseniks in the strict sense of the word is a much larger group which comprises those who are still waiting for an answer to théir first application, a process which nowadays takes up to 14 months, as well as those who have not yet applied at all but are contemplating doing so, or waiting for a propitious time.

What all these groups have in common is simply a desire to get out of the

Soviet Union. In some cases they are merely motivated by a general dissatis— faction with the regime, such as many non—Jews also feel: the restrictions, the bureaucracy, the periodic shortages of every-day commodities, the lack of economic opportunity. Most of them, additionally, feel uncomfortable in the Soviet Union because of the ever-present Antisemitism. Tgese are, we might say, the negatively motivated would-be emigrants, and it is not surprising that most of them, when they get to Vienna, if they are lucky enough to do so, opt for America rather than Israel and so become what are known as nosh'rim, 'drop—outs'.

But there are also many who are motivated by a positive desire to assert their Jewish identity, coupled with the conviction, which we found to be universal and unanimous, that the prospects of being able to do so within the

Soviet Union are nil. _ 5 _

This renewed will—to-be—Jewish is not as recent a phenomenon as is commonly supposed. It first showed itself after the death 6f Stalin, when, taking ad- vantage of the slightly more liberal atmosphere, Jews in many cities started groups for the study of Hebrew and to learn about the State of Israel. It was greatly accelerated by the visit of Golda Meir to Moscow, and by the Six Day

War, whiéh, as reported on foreign radio stations, had an electrifying effect on Soviet Jewry. It was further enhanced by the Trade Agreement with the United

States, and the Jackson Amendment, and the Helsinki Conference, and the general policy of détente, and the dramatic rise in the number of exit visas granted in consequence of these developments. It has also been boosted by the dignified and courageous bearing, and the defiant speeches, of the accused at the Leningrad and other trials.

But it must not be supposed that this re-awakening is to any great extent a religious movement. On the contrary, it is largely secular-national. Its spirit is the spirit of the Haskalah and Zionism. Its interest focuses chiefly on the

State of Israel, and the , and, to a lesser extent, on Jewish histofy.

There is indeed in Moscow a group of young people who are assiduously studying

Talmud under the leadership of Ilya Essas, whom the refuseniks refer to half- jocularly as "our rabbi", in contradistinction from Rabbi Yaakov Fischmann of the Great Syna 5 ogue whoflfi tw¢f:ggigsf écfi - \of being a collaborator with the s g ,7-._ fly ._.\,,I K.G.B.- But Essas himself is a refusenik who, one hopes, Qill sooner or later achieve his ambition to emigrate to Israel, where he will probably finish up as an Orthodox rabbi, and it remains to be.seen whether his influence will outlast his departure. In any case, the chances of a revival 6f Orthodox

Judaism in the Soviet Union are remote in the extreme.

There is also in Moscow a Hebrew school which operates so surreptiously

/ _ 6 _

that all our efforts to find the place where it was meeting on Sunday afternoon

for the celebration of Chanukkah proved in vain. But it is attended by only

about 20 children. There is also a Hebrew Teachers' Seminar, which we were

likewise unable to attend; but I imagine that its orientation, too, is more

secular than religious.

How else does the Jewish revival manifest itself? Most movingly by the

informal gatherings of refusenifié and associated Jews, especially young people,

whéch take place spontaneously, not in the Synagogue, but in the street outside

it. We attended one such gathering on Friday night. There were about 50 people

present, exchanging news, singing Hebrew songs, and dancing. But as the temper-

ature was 16 degrees below zero, it was impossible to play the guitar, and the

singing didn't catch on as fervently as it might on other occasions. In any

‘case, only two or three of those present seemed to know the words of the songs,

which included figggg Na ilah, "Come, let us rejoice"; nig Melech Yisrael.

"David, King of Israel, shfall live for ever"; Eggig £323: Chalav u-D'vash,

"A Land flowing with Milk and Honey”; and Hevenu Shalom Ale chem, "We bring

you Peace", the words of which changed after a while to L'shanah ha-ba-ah

birushalaxim, "Next Year in Jerusalem", and ultimately to Ba-shanah ha-zot

b'Eretz Yisraelz "Egig year in the Land of Israel". We wgpk-jgw a similar

gathering on Saturday afternoon, also attended by about 50, but again the

extreme cold had an inhibiting effect on it.

Moving though these gatherings are, more significant, at least potentially,

are the so-called seminars, and the most important of these, in Moscow, are

two. One is held weekly in the home of Victor Brailowsky, a scientist who

has been more than once arrested, interrogated and had his home searched by

the K.G.B..for his activities in prompting Jewish cultfire. On Sunday its

programme consisted of a highly technical lecture by a mathematician from _ _ 7 Leningrad, after which I gave my paper, which Dr; Brailovsky translated sentence by sentence; on the nature of Judaism and fhe firobiem of Jewish survival. The other seminar is held weekly in the hofie of Arkady Mai, a historian and sociologist who, like Brailovsky, was a member of the organising committee of the abortive international Jewish cultural symposium which was to be held in Moscow in 1976, and, when ordered by the K.G.B. to resign from it, refused. His seminars deal, not with the sciences, but with the humanities, and have recently concentrated on the study of Jewish history. To fit in with thig pfogramme, I was asked to speak about the Rabbinic period of Jewish history, which I did for about three hours, again with a sentence—by-sentence translation into Réssian.

But in order not to keep you also for three hours, let me move towards some kind of a concluéion, and at the same time indicate what sort of action is called for on our part.

The Soviet Jews we met’, almost without exception, live in a dream, the dream of emigration, either to Israel or to America. ‘To that extent the atmosphere reminded me of my childhood in Germany, when emigration was virtually the only subject of conversation. Not that they are in any great physical danger. There are indeed a few in prison, and there is grave concern for them, especially for

Anatoly Shcharansky, and our most urgent task is to do what we can, by various formg of public protest, to secure their release. It is also true that those who apply for an exit visa almost invariably lose their jobs and therefore live in very straitened circumstances, and it is therefore a great help to them if visitors from abroad bring them gifts of things which they cannot obtain or which they can convert into money. In addition, they are very isolated from their fellow citizens, even from most of their fellow Jews, and of course from the outside world. Therefore it means much to them to know that we care, that we are active on their behalf, and it is a tremendous boost to their morale when _ 8 _

they receive letters and telephone calls from fellow Jews abroad. We may also be able to expedite the granting of exit visas to certain individuals if we.

appeal for them by name, directly and indirectly, to the Soviet authorities.

At the very least, we should Show our concern by attending the meetings arranged

from time to time by our own Soviet Jewry Group. Indeed, it would hardly be an

exaggeration to say that anyone who fails to take even that minimum 9f interest

is as guilty as those who failed to lift a finger on behalf of the Jews of Nazi

Germany.

It is true that those who succéed in getting out will not necessarily become

practising Jews in a religious sense; but at least they will have the opportunity

to do so, and the exposure to influences which may encourage them to do so. For

that, as well as for purely humanitarian reasons, the emigration movement must

be helped and fostered in every possible way.

How far and how soon this emigration dream will be fulfilled, depends on

future developments which it is impossible to foresee. They may be affected by

the Olympic Games; they may be affected by the future course of trade relations

with the United States; they may be affected by who succeeds Mr. Brezhnev. At

present the situation is deteriorating. Antisemitism, as I have said, is on the

increase; and though this year's total of exit visas is expected to reach an all-

time record of 50,000, that figure represents a smaller proportion than ever of

the number of applications made, and the conditions which applicants are required

to fulfil are becoming more restrictive. It is therefore possible, and even

likely, that, as in Pharaoh's dream about the seven fat years followed by the

seven lean years, the position will grow even worse.

But there is another dream, dreamt only by a few, that the Jews of the Soviet

Union, whether they emigrate or whether, by choice or necessity, they stay

behind, will rediscover their Judaism: not just their Jewish identity but their _ 9 -

Jewish culture; and not only their Jewish culture, but their Jewish religion, which is the essence of it, which holds in itself the Jewish contribution to the redemption of mankind, and which therefore alone gives real meaning and purpose to Jewish survival.

There are at present only slight indications that th;s is beginning to happen, and I hope I may have made a slight contribution to it. But small beginnings can lead to big consequences. That fact is illustrated by the Maccabean

Rebellion which we commemorate at Chnaukkah, and symbolised by the increasing intensity of illumination that emanates from the Menorah as we add to its candles from night to night. So, too, the seeds now being planted in Soviet

Jewry may fructify. Visits are talked about, typescrépts reproduced, and books distributed. 'So the dream may yet come true. Wisdom, true wisdom, which \ ‘ has always had in our tradition a religious connotation, the wisdom Solomon \,/ asked for in his dream, may yet renew and re—aséert itself. And if it is beginning to happen in the Soviet Union, where everything conspires against it, how much greater is our responsibility here, where there are no obstacles except our own apathy:

At any rate, there is tangible hope for the future. Last Friday, as a symbol of that hope, in our hotel room on the 19th floor of one of Moscow's tallest buildings, we kindled the Menorah and drew the curtains back to display its lights to the milling crowds in the street below. May I assume that we all share that hope? And may I further assume that we are all united in the resolve to do what we can to contribute to its fulfilment?

John D. Rayner Liberal Jewish Synagogue St. John's Wood, London 22nd December, 1979