Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 4, 1990                   TAG: 9101180124
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F/3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ARAB PRESSURE ON GORBY KEEPS JEWS STRANDED IN SOVIET UNION

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev succumbing to heavy pressure from Arab states concerned over the influx of Soviet Jews to Israel, has blocked an agreement between the Soviet airline Aeroflot and Israel's El Al Airlines for direct service between Moscow and Israel.

Gorbachev's decision effectively strands thousands of Jews who want to emigrate. The situation is worsened because the Bush administration - in anticipation of relaxed emigration rules by Moscow - has effectively shut down the old migrant routes through Vienna and Rome by placing restrictions on the number of Soviet immigrants to the United States.

As if this were not bad enough, Soviet Jews are being kept from leaving at a time of increasing anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

Recent incidents of anti-Semitism include a disruption of a Jan. 18 meeting of Moscow writers by a group of thugs who demanded that Jews get out of the country.

Others, as documented by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, include the vandalization of eight tombstones in the Jewish sections of the Vostryakova cemetery near Moscow, the smashing of all windows of the Kaunas Synagogue; the appearance of placards at demonstrations in Moscow which read "Hit the Jews to Save Russia"; warnings to residents of Leningrad not to rent summer homes to Jews; publication in the Soviet monthly magazine Nash Sovremenik of excerpts from a novel, describing a Jewish Masonic organization "which has ruled the world since ancient times"; assertions by the deputy chief of the Kiev City Executive Committee, V. Savchuk, that there are too many Jews in the city's cooperatives; and a demonstration by non-Jews on Leningrad's Nevsky Prospect demanding that the city's Jews be expelled.

Natan Sharansky - once a "guest" of the Soviet prison system for his human-rights activities - has written, in a foreword to a booklet published by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, of the "rapid growth of Pamyat and similar ultra-nationalist, reactionary and anti-Semitic mass organizations."

Sharansky explains that "this culture of unfreedom has deep roots in Russian history. In its authoritarian isolation under the tsars, Russia never experienced a renaissance, reformation or enlightenment .... Anti-Semitism found fertile ground in this environment because Jews continued to cherish a history and feeling of destiny that exalted freedom and human dignity. As such, Jews have been a force for poiitical change and artistic individuality. The enemies of freedom and the masses who fear change targeted the Jews as a dangerous force, an alien mentality."

Shoshana S. Cardin, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, wrote President Bush on Feb. 2: "One of our greatest concerns at this time is the upsurge we are witnessing in anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. We are receiving ever more frequent reports from our Soviet Jewish brethren about this ugly and menacing development and about the growing sense of apprehension each new incident creates."

Four days later, President Bush pledged the United States would assist Jews if evacuation becomes necessary. But the president gave no specifics about how such an evacuation might be carried out in the absence of Soviet cooperation.

Because of America's poor record in failing to allow even the full quota of Jews fleeing Hitler's Holocaust to enter the United States during a 15-year period of persecution (much less additional numbers as a humanitarian gesture), the Bush administration has an obligation to act against new incidents of persecution before they build to intolerable levels. Arab pressure notwithstanding, the administration should make it clear to Gorbachev that the Helsinki Accords his predecessor signed are still in force, and that they commit Moscow to let go any who wish to leave, including Jews, regardless of their destination.

The issue of freedom for Soviet Jews wanting to leave Russia needs to be resolved, and quickly, or the world will have a right to ask whether Gorbachev is reverting to the character traits of his oppressive predecessors.

- Los Angeles Tlmes Syndicate