Soviet Jews who fled Israel back to the USSR
"As soon as you find yourself in Israel, you realize that they need you and
your family to make it easier to master occupied Arab lands."
Yasha Levine
Feb 15
While working on the third installment of my series about the forced Soviet
Jewish migration to Israel (you can read parts one and two here), I got
tripped up by a cool little side story. It's about Soviet Jews who wanted to
come back - and in some cases actually managed to come back - to the USSR
after they had already emigrated to Israel. Why? Seems like they hated
Israel and felt like they got duped by Zionist propaganda.
The first thing that put me on the trail was a tiny Reuters dispatch from
1973 that I found reprinted in the New York Times. It was tacked on at the
end of a longer story about Jewish migration through Austria and it
mentioned that a hundred "Russian Jews" occupied the Soviet Consulate in
Vienna and demanded that the USSR let them back in. The refused to leave
without getting their return permits, leaving Soviet bureaucrats no choice
but to call in local cops to boot them out.
The New York Times, 1973.
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I did some more digging and found out that a few years after this incident
in Vienna, which was apparently barely noticed by anyone, the Soviet Union
caused quite a scandal by putting on a press conference and showcasing a
bunch of Jews who had left for Israel but then had came back because they
were disillusioned with the "free world" and with Zionism. It took place in
1976 and the New York Times dedicated a whole spread to these
double-refusnicks - complete with quotes from a few of the returnees
blasting Israel as violent, militaristic, and racist society.
"Israel is a racist state. We Soviet Jews having nothing to do there. Israel
wants to use us as unskilled laborers and cannon fodder," the New York Times
quoted Valery, who had left for Israel in 1972 and came back home to Nalchik
- yes, in Soviet Chechnya - just a few years later.
Soviet Jews were supposed to be dedicated Zionists. They were supposed to
love Israel and be grateful for having been rescued from the evils of the
Soviet totalitarianism. And yet here were a bunch of them who came back -
and they weren't happy with their experience. This was heresy. It was also
supposed to be impossible.
Everyone who left the Soviet Union - including my own family - was stripped
of their citizenship. It was understood by all that you were taking a
one-way trip out. There was no coming back, no matter what happened on the
outside. So I was surprised to find out that some Jews actually managed to
return.
I asked my mother and she said that she had never heard of anything like
this happening, either. Evgenia, though, says that she remembers Natalia
Medvedeva writing about Jews who came back to the Soviet Union. So cases
like this existed and were known in the Soviet Union at the time.
The New York Times, 1976.
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I dug around for some kind of report on this conference in Russian and found
transcripts of their testimony (or probably just their prepared written
statements) in a book published in 1979 by the Association of Soviet Lawyers
- a book released to fight propaganda unleashed against the Soviet Union by
capitalist "bourgeois countries."
Reading through their testimony, a lot of what they say sounds true enough -
especially the parts about the poverty in Israel, the lack of jobs for
trained professionals, the toxic racism built into Zionist ideology, the
Jew-vs-Jew hatred, and the realization that Israel only coveted them because
it needed their bodies to fight and to occupy Palestinian land. Many Soviet
Jews who flew to Israel in the early 1990s said pretty much the exact same
things. There's even a great short documentary program about it. As for the
Jew-vs-Jew hate? It still happens to today.
Parts of their testimonies, though, seem like obvious exaggerations - either
produced on demand or spiced up by their KGB handlers for maximum
anti-American and anti-Zionist propaganda impact. Valery, for instance,
talks about Israeli agents threatening to kill his children when he refused
to engage in Zionist propaganda campaign, even though they promised to pay
him big money. The fact that some of their accounts are exaggerated isn't
very surprising. To get their citizenship back they probably had to make a
deal - and it looks like this was part of it.
But whether or not all of what they say is truly genuine or not, it makes
for some good counter-narrative reading. And there's clearly a lot of truth
in it.
Obviously the vast majority of Soviet Jews didn't mind the Israeli
experience and everything that came with it - the theocracy of Israeli daily
life, the racism of Zionist ideology, the second-tier status as immigrants
from the Soviet Union, and the years of hardship they had to go through to
establish themselves in a poor, undeveloped country. But out of the tens of
thousands that left for the Promised Land in those early years in the 1970s,
it's not hard to imagine that a few of them did mind - they minded and they
wanted to return.
For many Soviet professionals life in Israel turned out to be a big step
down in terms of comfort and status. Filled with ideas of western abundance
and prosperity, they gave up fully furnished apartments and professional
jobs and then, after coming to Israel, they realized that they had to live
shacks and shanties and clean toilets for a living and scramble to achieve
economic stability. The levels of disillusionment were particularly high for
the first wave of Soviet Jews who came to Israel in the early years of the
1970s and had no real idea of what to expect - and their tales of how bad it
was quickly filtered back to Soviet Union and was a big reason for why
Soviet Jews started opting to go to America instead, as soon as they got the
chance in 1974. So it's interesting to read the perspectives of the
disillusioned few who actually managed to claw their way back.
I'm pasting rough translations of four of the seven testimonies that were
given that day in 1976. Check them out. I bolded some of the passages that I
liked.
I would be great to talk some of them of them now, if they're still alive.
If anyone has any tips, let me know.
-Yasha Levine
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Valery Kovent
RIA Novosti.
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Valery Kovent, born in 1942, college education. He went to Israel in 1972,
fled from there to the United States. Returned to the USSR in 1975. Lives in
the city of Nalchik.
I returned to the Soviet Union from the United States of America, where I
fled Israel with my family - wife, mother and three young children.
I ran because I realized that the Zionists pulled me to complicity in their
crimes. As soon as you find yourself in Israel, you clearly realize that
they need you and your family to make it easier to master occupied Arab
lands. The settlers inhabit illegally seized territories. But you can't live
in peace on earth knowing that hundreds of thousands of people who are
sheltering in tent camps and slums bombed by Israeli aircraft have been
expelled from here.
The United Nations condemns Israel's aggression and demands the liberation
of the occupied territories. The UN adopted a resolution labelling Zionism
as a form of racism and racial discrimination. I myself made sure these
decisions are deeply correct. Israel is a racist state, and we Soviet Jews
have nothing to do in it. They want to use us as laborers and cannon meat.
For example, I was sent to the father of three children several summonses
from Israeli military registration and enlistment offices. The last agenda
was that on August 19, 1973, I should arrive with things at the assembly
point to be sent to the army. After that, I secretly left Israel. We were
sailing to Italy by steamboat. Our satellites, natives of Kiev, freed a
large suitcase from their belongings so that I
could fit in it. We were afraid that I might be removed from the steamer
because I did not have permission from the military enlistment office to
leave Israel. So I swam in a suitcase to Cyprus, its owners were sitting on
it.
We knew they were being taken into the army by force. My friend's brother,
also from Nalchik, for example, was handcuffed, the other was taken despite
the fact that he was with one eye. He was told, "Moshe Dayan is also with
one eye, and wears a military uniform."
The Israelites, the indigenous people, want others to fight for them. I've
met a lot of Israeli guys in America. They're fleeing Israel from a military
conscription. Last year, more than 20,000 people escaped. I asked them: Why
are you here? They said, "Where should we be?" You Russian Ivans are going
to Israel, so fight.
I have to say that I began to receive summonses to the army after I refused
to serve the Zionists. When we arrived in Israel, I was offered to speak on
the Voice of Israel radio about the plight of Jews in the USSR. I replied
that Jews live well in the Soviet Union. For example, I myself had my own
house, garden, work, I didn't need anything. Then I was given a ready-made
false text. I refused to read it in front of the microphone.
I was also offered to tour Europe and the United States with messages of
this content to mobilize the Western public to fight for the departure of
Jews from the USSR. They promised high fees. When I rejected this, and I was
chased by Shin Bet agents, the Israeli secret police. They threatened to
kill my children.
In the U.S., I continued to be terrorized. I saw that in this "free world,"
a person is completely defenseless and that Zionist gangsters can do what
they want to do with him.
Clara Kris
Clara Kris, college education. She went to Israel in 1971, fled to Vienna
from there. Returned to the USSR in 1973. She lives in Chernivtsi and works
as a nurse.
Me, my husband and our two sons left Israel for Vienna, where they received
permission from the Soviet government to return to their homeland - the
USSR. We were ready to wait for this resolution for years, decades - just to
get it and return only to the Soviet Union and to no other country.
Life in Israel is impossible for us, it's a racist society. There, all are
strangers. There's no single people, no nation. Local Jews and people from
other countries openly feud with each other. We've never been so insulted
anywhere like we were in Israel. We were mocked for living in the Soviet
Union.
People in Israel are divided into classes - rich, middle-income, poor and
the very poor. The last two categories are the most numerous.
.hundreds of thousands of Jews who arrived in Israel in the 1950s come from
Algeria, Iraq, Turkey, Libya, India and Afghanistan. These eastern Jews were
settled in tents, barracks, old English barracks. They had to work black
jobs, in a hungry desert, on lands captured from Arabs. "Eastern Jews are
not Jews," is how Ashkenazis and Sabras (Jews from Europe and natives of
Israel) contemptuously talk about them. They get meagre earnings, hover in
slums, beg. It's their families who supply them to the Israeli market for
underage sex slaves.
Five thousand girls twelve years old and younger are forced into
prostitution.
Those who come from the USSR are also considered to be second-class people
here, many are forever blacklisted by the rabbinate and the Ministry of
Internal Affairs as unclean. Their entire family is doomed to discrimination
on the basis of race. These lists have been repeatedly reported by the
Israeli press. Information about persons included in them is transmitted to
local religious councils and to the registries of rabbinical courts.
It is known that only religious marriage is considered legal in Israel, and
"pure Jews" can marry only in accordance with Talmudic law. Civil marriage
is prohibited here even for atheists. There are 144 lists of "unclean blood"
that have become known to the public - they contain the names of tens of
thousands of people.
But there are also secret lists, including hundreds of thousands of names.
The lists contain the names and number of the registration cards,
information about the reasons why a person is prohibited from marrying, as
well as the source of information. It is considered a crime if you belong to
the Jewish faith but the ritual of accepting Judaism was not done according
to all the rules. The blacklists include illegitimate people - those who
have not been circumcised, women who are prohibited from marrying a certain
category of men, etc. Entire families of new immigrants are included here:
the Ministry of Religion has doubts about the vast majority of them,
although according documents they are Jews. The lists contain, for example,
the following notes: "daughter of a non-Jewish woman", "mother of three
children, needs a clearer acceptance of the Jewish faith", "a non-Jew,
although she is Jewish in her passport," "mother is a non-Jewish," "wants to
marry a non-Jewish person in England." All this is done to preserve the
"purity" of the race, in order to prevent the Karaites from marrying a
purebred a Jewish woman or illegitimate married an Israeli woman, marriage
to "goys" (non-Jews) is prohibited.
The vast majority of people do not suspect that they are blacklisted. Only
when people get married, as well as when filling certain positions, is it
clear that they are considered inferior. When drawing up blacklists of
unclean people, the Ministries of Religion and the Interior use data from
the Statistical Office for Registration of Citizens, as well as data from
detectives and scammers.
My youngest son, a schoolboy, was obliged to study the textbook "Sefair
Hakozari", published in Tel Aviv. It says that "the race of the people of
Israel is the best of all races, and the people of Israel are elected among
peoples."
Our children were poisoned with chauvinism and racism. After all, in Israel,
they were needed to fight for such ideas. We lived near the military
cemetery, and we had to see how many young soldiers were buried. I'm with
I thought it was terrible for my boys.
Ilya Fuzailov
Issac Kaplan and Ilya Fuzailov. RIA Novosti.
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Ilya Fuzailov, born in 1934, college education. He went to Israel in 1973,
fled from there to Italy. Returned to the USSR in 1975. Lives in the city of
Tashkent, works as an engineer.
After three years of correspondence and telephone conversations with my
father-in-law, our family decided to go to Israel. On September 1, 1973, we
crossed the border and soon found ourselves at the station in Vienna. We
were met by two police cars and a big bus, the police were armed with
automatic rifles. They accompanied the bus to Schoenau Castle.
Schoenau Castle is like a military camp. There is a transshipment point
here, where Jews are detained for two or three days. At night in Vienna, we
were put on a Boeing 707 plane, and three and a half hours later we landed
at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv. And then we were met by the police with
automatic rifles. We went up to the second floor. The hall is full of
people, everyone is waiting for a decision on their destiny. You go to the
first table, you get a debt book first of all. In it, the administration
makes records in Hebrew. You don't know what's written there, you just see
the numbers and sign.
At the next table, you are given a summons so that you can come to the
conscription point in five and a half months. That's how they immediately
try to introduce us to the militaristic activities of the State of Israel.
And you start to understand more who Israel really needs and why. They don't
need the old people and religious people. They need you you - a young,
healthy, strong man who can hold a weapon in his hands to protect their
interests.
You're told, "Congratulations on your return to the Holy Land." And
immediately they open your eyes to the true meaning of why Jews are lured
out of the Soviet Union, saying that it will take a long time to stand
against one hundred million Arabs.
Then there was a fight for housing, for the place of distribution. My
father-in-law told us to choose Ramat Gan, but we were offered Beer Sheva.
Everyone knows that it is on the border with the Arab states, on the lands
captured in 1967. Houses for emigrants there are mainly barrack type,
without water, there are no basic sanitary conditions. To me it became clear
that we are only needed to create a so-called buffer barrier so that Soviet
Jews take the first blow to themselves in case of a clash with Arabs.
We were even more disappointed when we came to relatives in the Shapiro
district, where mostly Bukhara Jews from Central Asia, who settled here
30-40 years ago, live. We didn't see a single tree here, narrow alleys, dead
ends, low dark buildings everywhere. And although our father-in-law promised
us to buy a house and stuff, we said, that we don't want to stay here and
can't. For us, it would be a resettlement in the last century. Father-in-law
kept persuading us. Representatives from the Bukhara Committee came to us,
tried to influence us first by appealing to our morals. Then they started
threatening us.
Finally, in December 1973, leaving our luggage in Israel, we left for Italy.
The permission to go to Rome was obtained fraudulently, thanks to a
fictitious telegram that we have relatives there in a difficult situation.
Boris Bravestein
RIA Novosti.
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Boris Bravestein, born in 1938, college education. He went to Israel in
1971, fled from there to Vienna. Returned to the USSR in 1975. He lives in
Kiev, works at a research institute.
I want to tell the truth about Zionism.
My idea of Israel consisted of the information transmitted by the Voice of
Israel radio station in Russian, various publications brought by tourists
from Israel and Western countries. Israel was depicted as a progressive,
modern and civilized state.
In fact, it turned out to be the exact opposite: backward, clerical.
country.
In Israel, I saw Zionist ideology in practical life - egregious antagonism
between people from different countries, antagonism on racial, religious and
social grounds. An example is a case that I personally observed in Beer
Sheba. The courtyard of the well appointed house was surrounded by wire and
fence, children of European Jews played in it, and on the other side of the
wire children of Jews from African countries stood and looked at their
peers.
Between antagonistic groups in Israel, the struggle is getting to a great
point. There is no peace here not only on the borders with neighboring
states, there is no peace within the country. And if a Jewish problem exists
anywhere, it only exists in Israel itself. Skillfully inciting Jews against
each other - Jews from different countries, old residents vs new arrivals -
Zionists have actually enslaved the population of Israel. The Israeli system
is a system of Zionist dictatorship.
Former citizens of the USSR do not accept nationalist ideology. From their
own experience, they are convinced that no other country can replace their
Soviet Motherland. Emigration out of Israel today had assumed huge
proportions. There is no longer a single country in Europe or America where
refugees from Israel don't live.
The Zionists have turned the Israeli people into an instrument to achieve
their goals, which were and remain reactionary. The peoples of the Arab
countries became victims of Zionism. Having become an international
organization, Zionism
interferes in the internal affairs not only of socialist countries, but, as
you know, many Western countries. It's enough to see who supports the
Zionists and who they support. No progressive movement has contact with the
Zionists. They have always cooperated with the most reactionary, including
fascists. The Zionists ruthlessly kill their opponents, resort to brazen
blackmail and persecution. I experienced it on myself. Fascists and Zionists
have ideological kinship: both are racists. For Soviet people, such an
ideology is unacceptable, it is disgusting to us.