Soviet Jews—In Israel & the West
Farewell, Israel!
by Ephraim Sevela.
Gateway Editions. 295 pp. $12.95.
Ephraim Sevela was once a noted Jewish activist in the Soviet Union; on February 24, 1971, he helped to organize a hunger strike by twenty-four Jews in the reception room of the Supreme Soviet in order to secure visas for Israel. Within months, almost all of the participants, and thousands of others, were on their way to the West. Once in Jerusalem, Sevela resumed his career as a writer. His collection of bittersweet tales of Jewish life in Lithuania, Legends from Invalid Street, appeared in English three years ago; a novel, Truth Is for Strangers, was published in this country in 1976.
Sevela’s personal history of devotion to Russian Jewry makes it all the more necessary to understand the complex emotions behind his latest and disturbingly malicious book, written after his embittered departure from Israel. Farewell, Israel! is neither fiction nor a memoir, nor a series of personal reflections. Surprisingly, Sevela tells us little about his own experiences in Israel, how he and his family lived, or whether his wife shares his disappointment with life there. Instead, he uses anecdotes and arguments of his own devising to persuade the reader that Soviet Jewry has seriously misjudged the reality of life in Israel; the fact that such a misjudgment could have occurred is for him an index of the entire corruption of the Jewish national enterprise.
Sevela’s book is full of gross exaggerations, inaccuracies, and tendentious argument. At its core, however, is a truth: some Soviet Jews are disenchanted with Israel. For some, the encounter with Israel has been confusing and disheartening, perhaps even more so than it was for the pioneers who ventured to Palestine in the early part of this century, only to return to Europe and America when their dreams of settlement were overwhelmed by the heat and dust and hardship of the life they found. Living in Israel has never been easy for any group of immigrants, as the numbers of those who leave, including, of course, sabras themselves, testify. In addition, however, many Soviet Jews come to Israel with unique disadvantages. They know little about the country, its economic and political system, its language, its culture. On the other hand—and what may be even worse—several aspects of Israeli life may seem all too familiar to them—notably the entrenched bureaucracy and, until recently, a dominant political party calling itself “socialist.”
Sevela provides a useful picture of the illusions about Israel which he and his colleagues had cultivated while still in the Soviet Union. “We Russian Jews invented an Israel of our own,” he declares, “it became the embodiment of those expectations which had remained unfulfilled in the USSR.” As Sevela recalls, the movement among Soviet Jews for emigration to Israel was “born as a protest against, and rejection of, Soviet life.” It was not primarily a longing to live freely as Jews that drove most to emigrate, he asserts, but rather a desire to escape the restrictions they faced as Jews, over and above the general interdictions of Soviet life.
Regrettably, some Western Jews, as well as the Israeli government, have misunderstood the motivations of their Soviet brethren, particularly the professionals among them, and mistakes have been made in absorbing them into their new societies. Coming from a place where a profession provides the whole basis for spiritual satisfaction in life, Russian Jews do not understand the mobility of careers in the West or the fact that a job need not last a lifetime. Often they have difficulties finding employment that corresponds to their original training and sometimes, too, they are assigned by unthinking bureaucrats to positions that hardly match their qualifications. Furthermore, many Soviet immigrants, including Sevela, continue to reflect the idiosyncrasies and obsessions that characterize life in the Soviet Union: a complete dependence on the government for medical, educational, and vocational opportunities, a mistrust of the disorderliness of Western political life, and a lack of tolerance for those whose ideas and cultural (or religious) behavior conflict with conventional standards.
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Sevela, however, goes beyond the acknowledged difficulties of adjusting to life in the West in general, and in Israel in particular, to make extravagant claims against the Jewish state, which he indicts for complete anarchy and corruption. “Nowhere,” he says, “does there exist such a propitious atmosphere for swindling as here.” The proliferation of political parties, the reliance on donations from abroad, the high rate of automobile accidents—all are evidence of the fatal shortcomings of Israeli democracy. Israel, far from being “a regenerating ferment for the Jewish nation,” is in fact “a catalyst hastening the process of its disintegration.” Even the Sephardic communities who left Arab lands in the early 1950’s would have been better off staying in Iraq or Syria. “Israel is doomed,” he concludes, “and is unlikely to survive a decade.”
At one point in his heated indictment, Sevela goes so far as to claim that
For many years Israel has been ruled, not by a government made up of one particular party but by a handful of people in Tel Aviv, hidden carefully away from prying eyes, the all-powerful syndicate GUSH. The members of this group deal the cards from the political pack, appointing and dismissing ministers with an iron hand, manipulating the “democratic voting” in parliament.
Such fanciful claims recall the accusations that used to emanate from the Soviet Union under Stalin that a mysterious Zionist organization named Joint was conspiring with the imperialists to overthrow Communism. In fact, Sevela’s style of argumentation seems to have been borrowed wholesale from Pravda, replete with embroidered anecdotes, bombastic rhetoric, and the demagogic self-righteousness of one who believes himself to be in sole possession of the Truth.
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It is hard to know exactly what has so embittered Sevela. Although his book denounces Israel, it also expresses contempt for the Soviet Union and great sadness for the Jewish people who are “loved by none.” It should not come as a surprise that Soviet citizens find life in Israel, or anywhere else in the West, overwhelmingly confusing. Their story needs to be told. But as Sevela’s book more than adequately demonstrates, they themselves may be the least equipped to tell it.
