Jews Are Barometer Of Russia's Health AJC Executive Director Tells Harvard Conference

American Jewish Committee
Sunday, 14 February 1999

Anti-Semitic trends and Jewish emigration rates "bespeak volumes about the health of Russian society," David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, told a conference on Russian Jewry at Harvard University today.

During the next two years, as Russia prepares for national elections, Russian Jews will be, as they always have been, "the most accurate barometer of the country's climate," Mr. Harris said.

"If Russia's Jews in urban centers like Moscow and St. Petersburg start to talk seriously about emigration and begin packing their bags, take note," Mr. Harris warned. "After all, these are the Jews who, having had essentially every opportunity to leave in the past decade, chose to stay, whether for family, economic or other reasons."

The three-day conference, "Jewish Life after the USSR," was held from Feb. 13-15 at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies. Harris spoke on "The Role of the American Jewish Committee in Helping Reconstitute Jewish Life in the Former Soviet Union."

Referring to recent anti-Semitic incidents in Russia, especially Communist lawmakers' statements that the Parliament has failed to condemn, Harris said that the strength of Russian democracy will be evaluated by how the authorities use the political and legal mechanisms available to counteract any increase in verbal or physical attacks against Jews.

Harris reminded the conference that the American Jewish Committee was established in 1906, in direct response to pogroms against Russian Jews. The defense of Jews in Russia has been a priority for the organization for more than nine decades.

Highlights of the AJC's work in behalf of Russian Jewry include:

- In 1912, several years after the AJC 's founding, its advocacy efforts led to the American abrogation of an 1832 commercial treaty with Russia because of Russian discrimination against American Jewish visa applicants.

- In January 1959, an AJC delegation met with Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, the first high-level meeting between a Soviet official and American Jewish leaders in over 40 years.

- AJC was one of four original sponsors of the American Conference on Soviet Jewry, established in 1964, and, in 1971 AJC became a founding member of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.

- The president of the NCSJ, Richard Maass, and the first executive director, Jerry Goodman, came from the lay and professional ranks, respectively, of the American Jewish Committee.

- The NCSJ and the Council of Jewish Federations asked the director of the AJC's Washington Office to coordinate the organization of Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jewry, which drew some 250,000 people in December 1987, on the eve of a summit between Soviet Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan.

While the AJC worked in concert with other Jewish organizations during the height of the Soviet Jewry campaign, from 1971 to 1991, what distinguished AJC's approach was its support for the Soviet human rights movement, said Mr. Harris. AJC demonstrated solidarity with Soviet dissidents largely through the organization's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights.

As a result of those efforts, a leading Soviet dissident, Elena Bonner, commented in 1997 that in the early 1970's the AJC was "one of the very few, if not the only one, among Jewish organizations concerned with the general state of human rights in the Soviet Union." The Blaustein Institute "did not limit itself to issues of Jewish emigration, understanding that an injustice anywhere on the face of this earth is a threat to justice everywhere."

With the collapse of communism, AJC recognized an "unprecedented opportunity" for the Jewish population in the region and has taken a number of initiatives "to help ensure the place of Jews and Jewish communities in the emerging post-communist societies."

AJC has held extensive regular contacts with high-level political officials in the former Soviet Union to discuss those countries' relations with Israel and with the United States, as well as the conditions of their respective Jewish populations.

"Our FSU interlocutors know that we want our fellow Jews to live in an atmosphere of equality free of anti-Semitism, at least from mainstream sources," said Mr. Harris, and that "we care deeply about the health of democracy and respect for human rights."

The AJC has conducted two significant surveys in the former Soviet Union on attitudes toward Jews, and in 1996, co-sponsored a conference on Jews in the former Soviet Union that took place in St. Petersburg. A summary of the conference is one of many publications issued by the AJC in recent years on the former Soviet Union.

By early next year, the AJC plans to issue a study of how Jews, Judaism, the Holocaust and Israel are treated in textbooks used in Russian primary and secondary schools.

Part of the AJC effort in the former Soviet Union also has been devoted to the "unfinished business" of the Holocaust, including pensions for survivors, preservation of sites of tragedy, restitution of communal property and introduction of Holocaust education.

Through education, research and advocacy, "the AJC is participating in the building of democratic institutions, the rule of law, civil society, human and civil rights protections and tolerance building programs" in the ethnically diverse societies of the former Soviet Union, said Mr. Harris.

"In the final analysis, the best protection for minority communities in majority cultures, be they Jews or others, is safeguarding the rights of all by fostering respect for democracy and pluralism," said Mr. Harris.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org