Russians in the US - Anecdotal

[Misha]

Why would they need altered documents after the collapse?  Israel didn't regulate this particularly carefully.  

Again, this is some of the rumours that I heard. In order to immigrate to Israel, you have to demonstrate that one of your grandparents was Jewish. This proof could include a birth certificate or other document attesting to the fact that your grandparent was Jewish. The rumors that circulated was that some people in certain regions could get an altered birth certificate or other such documentation to attest to the fact that one of their grandparents was Jewish. I do not how whether this is entirely true, but it was one of the accusations being leveled against waves of migration from Russia and the FSU to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

[Boethius]

Most of the time, someone in the family (husband, wife, mother, grandmother) was Jewish.  Everyone else emigrated with that one Jewish relative (who may have had a Jewish grandfather, and did not consider themselves Jewish).  So, you have one person with a tenuous relationship to Jewish ancestry, and several "hangers on" in the family with no Jewish blood, all of whom emigrate.

Having a Jewish relative is not particularly unusual, especially in Ukraine.

Problems have arisen because the emigres have not adapted to Israeli life.  They do not consider themselves Jewish, and want nothing to do with Jewish life. 

These days, many emigres are returning, particularly to Russia, including Jews who have said their opportunities for advancement in Israeli society are limited.  Also, many summer in Russia/Ukraine, and winter in Israel, where it is warmer.

[Ranetka]

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Of the two women, one was in her mid-40's and broke the ice by commenting on my wife reading a Lee Child's book (English) after takeoff. The woman and her mid-60's mother (the other seatmate) had been living in the US since 1999. My wife asked a question in English but the women refused to talk in English and insisted on conversing in Russian.

Why did your wife had to speak to other Russians in English? That's kinda strange....Has she forgotten Russian?

[Sculpto]

I didn't take it that way.  I took it as a description that they were immigrants who moved into an immigrant world, rather than the broader American society.  That is reality.  It doesn't matter if the person is Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Jewish, or Mexican, etc.  An immigrant married to an American is going to have a different emigre experience from one who is surrounded by other immigrants.

Maybe.. I might be hypersensitive on the topic.  Willing to see another side.
 

You are wrong about most Jews facing rampant persecution in the 1970's.  Most Jews who emigrated in the 1970's started leaving for the same reason anyone would have left the USSR.  It was an unfree society.  Religious Jews (a minority) didn't emigrate to the West.  They emigrated to Israel.  As for persecution, just to clarify, there was no persecution of Jews when they first started emigrating.  The persecution came after Jews started emigrating.  

Thats not what we heard then or what I here now when I encounter people from that wave of immigration.  And the Jews I encountered in Donetsk were hypervigilant about NOT letting people outside their community know for fear of persecution.
 

Very true.  The funny thing is, the Russian government tried to warn the US government of this phenomenom, and the problems they'd face.  They were ignored.

We like the mafia. 

[Boethius]

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[mendeleyev]

But discrimination isn't what started the "exodus".

We'll have to disagree on this one. Russia has never been an accepting place for "outsiders" even those forced to become a part of the state. Folks like Caucasians (ex: people from Georgia, Armenia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and environs), and most certainly Jews have been reminded thru all of Russian history that they were not "ethnic Russians" and that is why their status was stamped in passports.

Beginning with Tsar's resettlement pogroms in 1880, 3 million Jews left Russia from 1882-1914 (out of the 5+ million Jews that lived in the Empire before the exodus). Most of them made it to the USA, and a small part settled on the territory of modern day Israel.

The Soviet government actively persecuted the Jewish population but shut the door on any large exodus from Stalin into the 1990's. Those who did emigrate often had to leave all behind and most of their assets were taxed at 100% as a penality for wishing to leave the "workers paradise."

The last Jewish exodus coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and resulted in a massive flight to Israel with the arrival of close to a million Russian-speaking Jews in Israel. In fact the very word погром (Pogrom) is a Russian word and indicates a "warning chaos" which should be clearly understood in light of factual history.

All those pogroms before the revolution, after Stalin came into power, and post Stalin.....please, please, please don't tell me that somebody wrote "discrimination isn't what started the Jewish exodus."

Maybe it was the quality of ice cream in Israel? Better TV reception perhaps? Jerusalem had a better soccer team?

[ECOCKS]

Why did your wife had to speak to other Russians in English? That's kinda strange....Has she forgotten Russian?

She speaks Russsian just fine, better than Ukrainian in fact, but is always looking for a chance to improve her English. The conversation began when the younger woman asked her about reading the book in English and then told her she lived in NYC. My wife was shocked that the mother didn't speak any English and the daughter insisted on speaking Russian. Fits many of the stereotypes and expectations. The daughter works at some sort of insurance office dealing largely with the Russian population and apparently she doesn't go out of the zone much either.

Boethius and Misha:

While the story of the Russians who lied about their religion (or bribed someone to alter the paperwork) to get out of the FSU and into either Israel or the US (maybe Canada?) is perpetuated in Hollywood lore via Lords of War it is also commented on over coffees by Ukrainians as normalno. However they got there, the fact remains that there is a significant Russian/FSU Jewish population dating from that period  in the area we are discussing. Maybe another thread we can discuss the immigration population's processes for getting out of the FSU and into whatever country they were trying for. 

[Sculpto]

Interestingly.. my experience and communications would say that just about everything being reported int his thread has some truth to it.

Yes there was some Jewish mafia.. still exists, apparently quite strong in Odessa.  

Yes, some people managed to get documents falsified.. but.. then the Jewish communities here that sponsored them MADE THEM INTO JEWS.  Thats what happened at my temple anyway.  Some of them became the most orthodox around.  Others eventually faded out of the community.

There were also a lot of people with some Jewish ancestry who were completely atheist.  Model Soviet citizens, until the Jew tag got put on them and the discrimination began.

Lots of Russian Jews who went to Israel have gone back to Russia.. mostly so their kids don't have to serve in the army, so, the other excuses don't really fly with me.  Lots of Israelis emigrate to the US for the same reason.  As bad as the Russian or Ukrainian armed services might be to conscripts.. the chances of getting killed or having to see action are unfortunately a lot greater in Israel.  I know one Ukrainian Jewish family here in SF with a son about to graduate from college.  He is terrified at the idea of going to Ukraine, even though he really wants to, because he is afraid he will be conscripted because his parents have not become US citizens and his status is also not finalized.

Anti Semitism still exists in the FSU.  Anti Russian bias in the Jewish community in the US can be strong.  Not anti Russian Jew.. but anti Russia.  

"From my experience, people from the USSR lie a lot about what their life was like there.  Because I lived in the USSR, I have seen things from the inside."

I can in no way diminish your experience and I think you have shown an interesting perspective on a lot of things, but, I am afraid you are getting this one wrong.  I recently picked up a copy of Arthur Miller's "In Russia".  Incredible photos and very well written.  However.. even to me it was clear there were some things that influenced his perspective to shine a more favorable light on the USSR than was deserved.  I feel your position on this topic is suffering from the same misconception.  I have just been in contact with way too many Russian Jews who all report a very similar experience for ALL of them to be liars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Miller

Probably worth refreshing your Scharansky files too..

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Sharansky/sharansky-con0.html

[Misha]

Boethius and Misha:

While the story of the Russians who lied about their religion (or bribed someone to alter the paperwork) to get out of the FSU and into either Israel or the US (maybe Canada?) is perpetuated in Hollywood lore via Lords of War it is also commented on over coffees by Ukrainians as normalno.

Again, these are just rumors circulating that have nothing to do with Hollywood (the entire world does not rotate around the United States and Hollywood  ). Mainly hearsay from Russian Jews who had lived in Israel and now are in Canada.

[ECOCKS]

Ecocks. I wonder if your wife was on the sme plane as me. I arrived back from Kiev last Sunday. As far as Brighton is concerned, I live about 40 minutes away and have been there a few times. The overpass is actually an overhead rail (train) system, part of the NYC subway. The area has a great beach and boardwalk and some good places to shop for ethnic foods. And some excellent resturants and clubs. But it is a city environment. The apartments off the main drag are not the best, but walk a few blocks away and there are some pretty nice homes. There have been some newer bulidings put up, many considered luxury, but more on the waterfront area.

BTW, Viking, didn't mean to miss your comment here, she came over on the Tuesday flight.

[Sculpto]

Misha I would tend to agree with you that they are mostly rumors.. but.. I am pretty sure there are more than a few cases where it is real.. not common.. not the norm.. but real and existing.  Don't push me to obsession to research this please, I beg you!  LOL.. I have more interesting topics to pursue.  

[ECOCKS]

Again, these are just rumors circulating that have nothing to do with Hollywood (the entire world does not rotate around the United States and Hollywood  ). Mainly hearsay from Russian Jews who had lived in Israel and now are in Canada.

Right Misha, that's why I clarified that I have heard this story from different individual sources and it is commented on around the community. I heard the same rumors too.

[Boethius]

We'll have to disagree on this one. Russia has never been an accepting place for "outsiders" even those forced to become a part of the state. Folks like Caucasians (ex: people from Georgia, Armenia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and environs), and most certainly Jews have been reminded thru all of Russian history that they were not "ethnic Russians" and that is why their status was stamped in passports.

Beginning with Tsar's resettlement pogroms in 1880, 3 million Jews left Russia from 1882-1914 (out of the 5+ million Jews that lived in the Empire before the exodus). Most of them made it to the USA, and a small part settled on the territory of modern day Israel.

Not exactly true.  But Jews were not allowed to settle within the Russian borders.  Catherine the Great did not feel comfortable with establishing the Pale of Settlement, but did so because Russian merchants opposed competition from Jewish merchants.  

Jews left the Russian Empire, not Russia, as 3 million Jews did not live in Russia in that period.

You may also wish to examine the facts of Jewish commerce in Ukraine.  In Tsarist Russia, Jews owned the majority of the factories, and controlled the majority of the major industries in Ukraine.  But, this was a small layer.  The majority of Jews, like the majority of the rest of the population, lived hand to mouth.

Nevertheless, I wasn't referring to Tsarist Jewish emigration.  I was referring specifically to emigration which commenced in the 1970's.

The Soviet government actively persecuted the Jewish population but shut the door on any large exodus from Stalin into the 1990's. Those who did emigrate often had to leave all behind and most of their assets were taxed at 100% as a penality for wishing to leave the "workers paradise."

Wrong.  Jews were not singled out for persecution.  Have a look through Cheka and NKVD archives in Ukraine.  Do some research on the ethnic make up of the communist party of Ukraine, or of elite positions; Up until the late 1960's, those who held these positions were predominantly Jewish.  It didn't matter if you were a Jew, or a Russian, or a Georgian, or a Ukrainian.  What mattered was loyalty to the party.

All those pogroms before the revolution, after Stalin came into power, and post Stalin.....please, please, please don't tell me that somebody wrote "discrimination isn't what started the Jewish exodus."

Maybe it was the quality of ice cream in Israel? Better TV reception perhaps? Jerusalem had a better soccer team?[/quote]

Very few individuals emigrated until Edgar Bronfman negotiated with the Soviets. That was in the early 1970's.  And most of the Jews who left were not leaving because of discrimination; they were leaving because the USSR was a totalitarian state.  

[Boethius]

Sorry, but there is just no way someone could falsify papers in Soviet times.  The control mechanisms were just too strong. 

Sculpto, find out the professions of those you speak to in Soviet times.  Many positions required party approval to even attend university, and that usually meant doing some unsavoury things (such as informing on others).  People want to forget they did these things. 

[Misha]

Sorry, but there is just no way someone could falsify papers in Soviet times.  The control mechanisms were just too strong. 

Again, I was not referring to Soviet times but to POST-Soviet times.

[Boethius]

Post Soviet times, anything was possible.  But I don't think Israel required proof of "lineage".  This has now become an issue in Israel, and rabbis have lobbied to have the law of return changed.  Given the demographics Israel faces, I am not sure that will happen soon.

I should be clear - religious life was discriminatory, but it was pretty much discriminatory against any religious believer.

[ECOCKS]

Sorry, but there is just no way someone could falsify papers in Soviet times.  The control mechanisms were just too strong. 

Sculpto, find out the professions of those you speak to in Soviet times.  Many positions required party approval to even attend university, and that usually meant doing some unsavoury things (such as informing on others).  People want to forget they did these things. 

Wow, guess we'll talk about the Jewish immigration situation instead of Russian community dynamics.

Boethius:

We aren't talking about Soviet times though. The stories I heard from Ukrainians are all about changing paperwork in the post-Soviet 90's in order to get their visas. The stories also include arranged marriages for benefit of the visa (an early version of the GCG/M) and in order to simply get out. Many wanted to then jump ship on to places like the US and Canada. One couple I am aware of had this goal in mind but did not pass the English exam and chose to stay in Israel.

[Sculpto]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusenik_(Soviet_Union)

Boethius..

From my understanding of things, which I grant you is quite limited.. just about anything could be gotten for a price.  A few posts back I mentioned El Paso and mafia types hanging out at the gym.. there is a reason I used this example.

The individual who "enlightened" me came from St. Pete.. though he called it Leningrad.  He told me about the games him and his friends played with the KGB.  His "gang" was at the time mostly involved in the smuggling of consumer electronic goods from the west to sell on the streets.  Apparently they made quite a bit of hard money doing it.  Life was a process of cat and mouse, the smugglers versus the KGB.  This individual is not Jewish, has no Jewish ancestry, and yes was able to emigrate as a Jew.  He is now a US citizen.  He lives in El Paso, spends all day at the gym, has no job to speak of and should the caca ever hit the fan he can disappear across the border in an instant.  He maintains an apartment in Juarez with a Mexican registered vehicle and a Mexican girlfriend on the side from his Russian GFs in El Paso.  And yes, I have confirmed this stuff with my own eyes.  

You my friend are no criminal.  Clearly you do not think like a criminal.  Clearly you do not associate with criminals.  HAHA.. neither do I specifically.. but.. I have had some exposure, not always willingly... and honestly.. you really do not want to get me started on the Irish mafia here in SF because they make the Russians look like a bunch of children... at least in this neck of the woods.  

[Misha]

Post Soviet times, anything was possible.  But I don't think Israel required proof of "lineage". 

I knew this one fellow who immigrated to Israel in 1997 as he had a Jewish grandmother. When he left, I knew more about Judaism than he did.

[Sculpto]

You know.. i am sitting her thinking about this.. and the El Paso guy might have not been telling the whole story about the Jewish part of his story. He came in 1990.

Nevertheless.. I did find this..

Do We Leave the Russian Jews to Their Fate?
They Face Extinction, Unless —

JULIUS MARGOLIN
October 1953
 
“All of Israel are responsible for one another.” So the ancient rabbis taught. Do we need to say any more than this to account for the anxiety that world Jewry feels for the two and a half million Jews behind the Iron Curtain, the largest part of whom are some 1,800,000 Russian Jews? This two and a half million is the remnant of the eight or nine million that lived in Eastern Europe before the Hitler extermination. And each of these Jews is precious to us because he represents a type—a particularly creative type of European Jew which it took centuries to evolve, and which initiated and sustained the most important developments in Jewish life of the past fifty years. It was the spring that fed both the flood of emigration to America and Zionism—the two basic movements of 20th-century Jewish history. Now this Jewish type—and indeed Judaism itself, in any and every genuine form—is threatened with extinction under Soviet rule. For thirty years we did not know, or misunderstood, or were systematically deluded about what was happening to the Jews inside Soviet Russia. Thanks to the Prague trial and the misfired Moscow “doctors' plot” we are perhaps no longer quite so simple-minded. Make no mistake about it: the Jewish people is facing death in the Soviet Union. Incessant persecution has so shattered and dispersed them that they stand on the verge of extinction."

About the Author
Mr. Margolin now lives in Tel Aviv and is the author of a book on his five years in Soviet concentration camps.

[GregfromGa]

We did the Brighton Beach thing a couple of years ago. The wife was about as impressed as me. She was ready to go after about 5 minutes. We walked down the boardwalk and the weather was nice. We went into a Russian/Ukrainian cafe and waited about 10 minutes before no one took our order. We left.

We loved NYC and will certainly go back in the future. Brighton Beach will not be one of our things to do. Little Italy on the other hand. Nice immigrant Italians working,great food,good history. Heck I had some good borscht in Chinatown.

[Boethius]

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[ECOCKS]

We did the Brighton Beach thing a couple of years ago. The wife was about as impressed as me. She was ready to go after about 5 minutes. We walked down the boardwalk and the weather was nice. We went into a Russian/Ukrainian cafe and waited about 10 minutes before no one took our order. We left.

We loved NYC and will certainly go back in the future. Brighton Beach will not be one of our things to do. Little Italy on the other hand. Nice immigrant Italians working,great food,good history. Heck I had some good borscht in Chinatown.

Sounds like a very authentic transplant of the Ukrainian service mentality at least.

[Sculpto]

I'm not denying anything could be purchased in post Soviet times.

Sculpto, your friend is either lying or is naive.  The KGB would have allowed this, because they want to know who is involved, how they are organized, who gets the money, etc.  The big fish is caught, and is either sent to jail or turned to an informant.  It was a completely controlled state, right to the collapse.


The definition of "criminal" in the USSR was rather fluid.  Anyone who the state wanted to be a criminal was a criminal.  I didn't know criminals, but my husband knew many, as he lived in a lot of rough neighbourhoods.  He even knows all the criminal slang.  Generally, they never touched him or his sister, because they were poor.

On our block lived one of the arch criminals in Ukraine, probably the USSR.  He worked on the second shift of a factory.  He knew not to flash his money, or give it to his kids.  Eventually, he was jailed because of a murder, but did little time (he was an accessory).  As with everyone who had done time, whether for political or criminal "crimes", he was under police surveillance.  He came out and told all the petty criminals to clear out, or else.  The neighbourhood was happy when he came back, as there was no crime and no drunkards lying about or shaking down kids for money.

My husband also knew someone who worked on the ports at Leningrad.  There was a lot of smuggling from Poland then (right up until martial law was declared).  This guy told him it was impossible to get anything in or out without the authorities knowing, but they were told to let things through.  This was so they could trace who was involved.

I think Julius Margolin's piece is not about persecution of Jews, but about the persecution of Jews for wanting to assert their Jewishness.  What I mean is that if you were a Soviet Jew, no problem.  If you were a Jew interested in Judaism, or your "Jewish" identity vis a vis Judaism, big problem.  Bolshevism attempted to create a new Soviet person, free from the constraints of the past, which included such bourgeois notions as national identity.

Wow.. all this time I thought we were talking to a man.    You slipped.  (unless I missed something earlier)

Anyway.. the El Paso guy might very well have been lying, but, I do know he had the stink of the underworld all over him and that is why I ceased doing business with him.  In the end, the showroom he was opening here in SF failed and the doors were locked with half a million dollars worth of display merchandise inside because he did not pay rent or his employees.  I followed him closely after my "negotiations" with him.  I think he told those stories to impress me because he was aware I had already made two trips and was trying to learn Russian language.  Nevertheless, his descriptions of the process of smuggling dovetails exactly with what you mentioned about the stuff coming in from Poland.  He talked about payoffs to the KGB people in his area and purposely not making too much money because the cash would have aroused greater attention.

Now.. about Margolin.. you said..
"I think Julius Margolin's piece is not about persecution of Jews, but about the persecution of Jews for wanting to assert their Jewishness.  What I mean is that if you were a Soviet Jew, no problem.  If you were a Jew interested in Judaism, or your "Jewish" identity vis a vis Judaism, big problem.  Bolshevism attempted to create a new Soviet person, free from the constraints of the past, which included such bourgeois notions as national identity."

And that is exactly my point.  As long as you did not express your free will you were in fact free to be a slave to the state.  But, if you wanted to practice your religion, be it Jewish or any other, you became an enemy to the state.  At one time, when the concept was pure and the intent was to really create a classless state.. it was a beautiful idea.  But, when it became obvious to people who were capable of thinking that such ideologies had become nothing more than a tool of total control there was just no way to convince people to stop doing what they had done for thousands of years.  Repression in that form is simply repression.  It doesn't matter if the Jews or the Gypsys or the Muslims or any other ethnicity or religion was singled out.. or they were all persecuted equally.. Jews have a strong magnet that pulls them to Israel.. its thousands of years of being held as the highest aspiration.. repressing it is not easy.. so they rebelled.. one way or another it was inevitable in the failure of the communist ideology to full fill the dream of a classless state that some minority would rebel.  The Jews know how to organize.. they had support outside the USSR.. there were ways people managed to communicate in the decades before the internet.. they rebelled because they wanted to be free to live their lives as Jews and as free people.  I don't say this often.. but.. God Bless them!

All that said.. I wish the pure form had worked.  I wish human nature and greed and lust for power had not corrupted what was a beautiful idea.  

So.. to try and bring this thread back to its original topic.. I am very curious about those of you who are old enough to have lived as adults in the USSR understood the west and how it is different from the propaganda images that existed in your mind.  I know, going west to east things are a LOT different than what I had expected.  

[Boethius]

Jews did not organize within the USSR.  But, they were likely to have some really smart supporters outside who wanted to help them.  I'm happy anyone could escape if they had the opportunity.