IB Extended Essay in History
A. Abstract
In 1963 illegal distribution of Leon Uris's novel Exodus began within the Soviet Union. In 1970, after 60% of activists read it, Jewish emigration began in unprecedented quotas. Was there a relationship between this one book and an enormous level of emigration to Israel, which reached its apex exactly a decade after its introduction? This investigation seeks to answer the question how Significant was Leon Uris's Exodus in causing the 1970-1974 Rise in Soviet Jewish Immigration to Israel? By investigating the effect Exodus had on Jewish communities, the socio-economic, and political climate in the context of Soviet policy, their significance in causing the rise of emigration shall be determined. Focusing specifically on causes for Jewish desire to emigrate 1967-74 rather than Soviet policy that permitted it, involves analyses of surveys made of Jewish activists upon entree to Israel, which specifically asked for their reasons for transit. An interview with Volvovsky, a Jewish activist imprisoned for the distribution of Exodus, will be evaluated on the causes for emigration. Social and economic concerns of Jews will be investigated, not merely from anecdotal material but statistics revealing decreasing university admissions and anti-Semitic publications, found to increase before emigration reached its crescendo. To grasp Soviet policy Onikov's memorandum will be analysed, as it is the only Soviet document which sought to rationally explain emigration. It will be determined that Exodus was instrumental in the intensification of Jewish national consciousness and revealed alternatives to the socio-economic and politically oppressive Soviet climate. Discrimination and anti-Semitism proved most significant in the causation of increased emigrations between 1970-1974 and Soviet policy, affected by American relations. was decisive in the facilitation of this emigration. As Goldstein argues, Jews were pushed out of the Soviet union, rather then pulled towards settling in Israel. Words: 293
C. Introduction
As the fifth decade of Soviet rule came to an end, the Jews, officially recognised as a nationality, sought emigration from the Soviet Union in unprecedented scales. They were a unique group, eleventh numerically of more than 100 diverse Soviet nationalities and constituted 1.09 percent of the population. The extent to which Leon Uris's novel Exodus, illegally translated and distributed to Soviet Jewry "literally caused Aliyah" remains historically controversial. Thus, How Significant was Leon Uris's "Exodus", in Causing the Rise of Soviet Jewish Emigration 1970-1974? Significance shall be defined as factors that shaped Jewish desire to emigrate both long-term and specifically short-term. The causality of emigration in the scope of 1970 to 1974 merits investigation as in 1973 the greatest number of Soviet Jews emigrated to Israel in Soviet history. Furthermore, to better understand Diaspora Jewish identity, analysing the power of Jewish literature in historical contexts is compelling. Soviet Jewish life was shaped by social, political and economic factors as well as persecution in varying degrees. During the early years of Bolshevik triumph, Jews experienced a "golden age" as leaders of the Revolution, and official policy towards them was positive." Leninist policy towards Judaism, justified by Marxist principle, explained the phenomenon of anti-Semitism as "capitalists fomenting hatred against the Jews in order to blind the workers, to divert their attention from the real enemy of the working people, capital."6 During the 1930s Jewish life in the Soviet Union was acculturated with assimilation, and great numbers of interethnic marriages, which would change upon Nazi invasion of USSR when enforcement of passive identity was required to set Jews apart from other Soviet citizens. Throughout the "black years" (1939-1953), approximately two million Soviet Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and Jews suffered further in events such as "the night of the murdered poets" and the 1953 'Doctors' Plot'. During de- Stalinization (1953-64) Jews experienced the withdrawal from "more egregious and life- threatening forms of official anti-Semitism." Evidently, negative treatment towards the Jewish minority ranged throughout Soviet Union's history, from discrimination in forms of exclusion from educational opportunities and professions to pogroms under Stalin. Thus, persecution varied in intensity along with accompanying necessity to emigrate.13
Desire to emigrate, as well as Soviet policy granting permission, led to fluctuating quotas. Jewish emigration can be separated into three periods. The first, and the subject of this investigation, (1968-1974)15 saw most Jewish emigration to Israel coming from the "Russian peripheries" where Jewish ties were the strongest.
Throughout the second period (1974-1979), "both the destination and the origin of emigrants changed;"18 the Jews coming from larger urban areas and beginning the
dropout movement. Instead of immigrating to Israel many used the
opportunity to immigrate to Western countries most prominently USA, but
also to Canada and Australia." Throughout the third period of the 1990s,
the tendency to immigrate to Western countries once more reversed as
74% of all Soviet Jewish emigrants chose to migrate to Israel in 1991.20
These varying emigration quotas reflect the inconsistency of both
Soviet policies towards emigration as well as varying degrees of Jews'
desire to emigrate. During the first interval, mass emigration
beginning in 1970 rose from 12,819 Soviet Jewish immigrations to Israel
in 1971, to 33,447 in 1973. Emigration began post Premier Alexei
Kosygin's 1966 press conference in France where he stated, "as regards
[Jewish] family reunions, if there are, in fact some families which
would like to meet, or to leave the Soviet Union, the way is open before
them, and this constitutes no problem." Published in Soviet press, this
was regarded as official policy despite having no foundation in Soviet
law or rights. However, the 1967 Six-Day War led to the abandonment of
this discretion, and the breaking of diplomatic relations with Israel.23
At the start of the 1970s emigration was permitted in larger scales as a
result of events such as the Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair24 and
international pressures for fulfilment of human rights in the USSR along
with other factors that shaped Soviet policy. To investigate
significance of causes for the 1970s rise in Soviet Jewish emigration,
Exodus will primarily be considered; secondly, the significance of
anti-Semitism and discrimination and thereafter the significance of
Soviet policy towards Jews and towards emigration shall be assessed.
D. Investigation
Exodus and its Effect on the Rise of Emigration
Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minster, asserted that Exodus, "as a piece of propaganda, is the best thing ever written about Israel25, believing its influence on the Diaspora goes beyond a literal understanding of the foundation of the Israeli state. The extent to which Exodus directly caused the rise in Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel is however subject to debate. Sovict policy makers imposed restrictions on books, which were consequently distributed through the movement of Samizdat- "works circulated in the Soviet Union without official permission."20 Exodus was one such book, translated into Russian illegally and circulated via the Jewish Samizdat. Leah Pliner, who regarded the novel as her "Tanach"27, (Bible), translated Exodus in Riga where it was replicated into 300 copies by 1963.28 By 1966, approximately four separate translations were circulating within the Soviet Union and by 1973, 60% of all Jewish activists had read Uris's novel. To appreciate its impact on Jewish emigration quotas, Soviet policy towards it will be considered. Its allegorical influence on Jewish activists' opinions on it and its role in their decision to emigrate must also be analysed. Soviet authorities believed Exodus influenced the Jewish population profoundly, shown in an official secret Soviet memorandum to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.31 Written January 14th 1971, it states, "Leon Uris's book, Exodus... [defames] the policy of the Soviet State" and is illegal for being "anti-Soviet"." Another memorandum in May that year, describes Exodus as a threat, directed at "undermining the political foundation of the Soviet State" and creating a "nationalist underground in our country." These primary documents of the CPSU reveal that the authorities recognised Exodus as a significant factor at a time of growing demand for emigration visas. To this end, in order to reduce the supply and circulation of Exodus and to invoke fear in the distributers of such anti-Soviet materials, the Government arrested two Jewish activists. Yakov Levin and Leonid Volvovsky were sentenced to prison and charged in part for distributing "anti-Soviet propaganda" - namely, Leon Uris's novel "Exodus showing the fear of its impact to the extent of imprisoning its distributers to decrease its availability and minimise incentive to emigrate. Uris's Exodus sustained unparalleled appeal to Soviet Jews and influenced activists to the extent that some hold it responsible for directly increasing Soviet Jewish emigration to Israel. Hoffman, a key historian because of her in-depth analysis on the "Jewish Samizdat"35 argues, "[t]he single Samizdat book which had the profoundest effect on Soviet Jews was Leon Uris's Exodus. For her, it was in its presentation of heroic idealistic Jewish figures and emphasising Judaism on a nationalistic basis that Exodus engendered in Soviet Jews a pride in their identity. This is supported by the accounts of samizdat Jewish activists noting Exodus as "the greatest Jewish inspiration for the tens of thousands of Jews who had read it'37 turning readers into avid Zionists.38 Jerry Goodman, executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry at that time, opined, "For Soviet Jews, Exodus is more meaningful than even the Bible" 39 He explains further "most of the Jewish activists in the late 1960's and early 1970's always cited to me the importance of the book. They didn't treat it as a literary experience; it was history - the only knowledge they had of the Jewish experience." Such influence extends further duc to narrative and biblical parallels which caused a de facto rise in emigration when it spread in Soviet Jewish communities in the 1970s. The narrative, according to Hoffman, "suggested parallels, modes of action for the contemporary Soviet Jew contemplating his own exodus" and "the biblical injunction 'Let my people go', the epigraph of the first book... became the rallying cry of Soviet Jewry." These thematic and biblical connections had a profound effect on Soviet Jewry, evident in personal accounts of Soviet Jews who had immigrated to Israel. Eliahu Essass, in a 1986 interview in Israel, thirteen years after his first application for an exit visa, asserted, "its impact was enormous. It was our first encounter with Jewish history. It gave us inspiration and turned almost everybody who read it into convinced Zionists."41 Essass's claims are supported by Uris himself, who believes "...reading 'Exodus' was the first step for applying for a visa to come out of Russia. Indeed, Kitty, a main character in Exodus, predicts that the next large Aliyah will come from the Soviet Union. Silver corroborates Hoffman's view in his book entirely dedicated to analyse the influence of Exodus: "Soviet Jews adopted and personally enacted Uris's formulas, seeking a new home in the Jewish state in their exodus from totalitarian persecution." Undoubtedly, emigration to Israel was caused by factors other than Exodus. Rather than fulfilling the Zionist agenda of Aliyah,* Exodus serves as ethnic empowerment according to former emigrant, Leonoid Volvovsky, who argues that it is false to reduce "complicated personal odysseys that result in immigration to the reading of a book."46 Volvovsky, who risked everything to distribute Exodus, consequently spent five years in the Gulag for the Samizdat editions of Exodus,7 gaining American recognition in Congress as a freedom fighter. If Exodus had a comprehensive impact on anyone it was Volvovsky, who would even adopt the name of Uris's hero: "Today I am Ari Volvovsky, after Ari Ben Canaan."49 Despite deeply believing that Exodus allowed thousands of Soviet Jews to move from Jewish self-denial to Jewish self-respect," he persuasively asserts it was not the most significant factor in causing emigration. Moreover, Alex Orli, a passenger of the actual Exodus about which Uris wrote his book, explained in a personal interview that Exodus lacked historical accuracy and literary merit," leading him to believe that it alone could not have influenced emigration. Exodus's success at achieving mass popularity amongst Soviet Jews relies on the fact that, were it not for state oppression, discrimination and anti-Zionist campaigns, it's appeal to Soviet Jewry would have been greatly diminished. Whilst Hoffman claims "Exodus provided a comprehensible way of identifying as a Jew,' leading to increased desire to emigrate, this was no doubt primarily because of discrimination and long- lasting humiliation by Soviet attempts to deny the existence of Jewish nationalism or a Jewish state.
Discrimination and Anti-Semitism
Discrimination against the Jewish minority was arguably the most significant agent in fuelling the growing demand for emigration visas. The dramatic decline of admissions of Jews to institutions of higher education post 1968 had a profound effect on the Jewish population, one third of whom was university-educated compared to 4% of the Russian population. In 1968 the number of Jews admitted to universities in the USSR was 112,000, decreasing to 105,000 in 1970 and 88,500 in 1972, offering empirical justification to the 18% of Soviet Jews who answered "fear and apprehension about Soviet Jews' fate and future in USSR" as the chief cause for emigration, in a survey55 conducted in Israel, 1973.56 This survey asked 300 Aliyah activists 105 questions regarding their activities in, and their reasons to emigrate from, the Soviet Union." Conducted by the Centre for Research and Documentation of East European Jewry, its results are categorised into causes for emigration during the time of its peak (1973), though it lacks a large sample size, [300 interviewed out of 33,447 émigrés that year] offering only partial indication. Nevertheless Freedman, a proponent of the Annales School, supports the notion that emigration is socially driven arguing, "this discrimination against merit is compelling Jews to seek to leave as future options become increasingly restrictive."58 However his book Soviet Jewry in the Decisive Decade, published 1984, lacks both hindsight and material, which only became available with the Soviet collapse and the opening of the archives in 1991. For example, when discussing university admittance to leading institutes, Freedman explains a system for lowering the examination marks of Jewish applicants, though confesses difficulties in supporting his claims "since little records, if they exist, are kept secret." Upon the opening of the archives, Freedman's conclusions were confirmed by the findings of Roi. Despite the challenges imposed by the context of Freedman's writing, discrimination in the form of decreasing university admissions was crucial in increasing the number of Jewish emigrants in the early 1970s. Additionally, Economic opportunity for Jews in the Soviet Union curtailed as they were subject to discrimination in their employment, decreasing any incentive to remain in the USSR shown in the 57% of activists who reported difficulties in finding employment due to their "Jewishness" illustrating discrimination, albeit in a subjective form of questionnaire." Personal experiences such as that of Victor Perlman further describe the impact of discrimination in which he personally "felt the full force of anti-Semitism when... all the institutes' Jewish graduates, about 200 people, remained without appointments and were never given a job."62 Evidence supports this account- 70% of the Jewish activists had adaptation problems of various sorts in the workplace according to Goldstein. The severest form of discrimination directed against a Jew's professional capacity occurred upon a declaration of application for an emigration visa. Four percent of the activists were dismissed from their professions and 10% were demoted to professions that paid 40% less, when they applied for an exit visa. This was crucial as such discrimination towards Jews who chose to request an exit permit did not halt the demand for such visas, if anything it accounted for its growth. 65 Furthermore, anti-Semitic/Zionist propaganda, which denigrated Jews for their cultural-religious loyalties to the State of Israel, was instrumental in increasing Jewish emigration quotas. Freedman described the USSR as "among the largest producers of anti-Semitic materials in the world", but a problem in interpretation occurs- given that this had been a long-term factor dating from the Okhrana's Protocols of the Elders of Zion, should there not be a specific change in anti-Semitism that would lead Soviet Jews to emigrate in order to assess causality? Indeed, there was- the Six Day War of 1967 which would prove the catalyst for 'Soviet anti-Zionism' demonstrated in the 1969-1970 sharp rise in the number of articles on Zionism and Jewish themes in Soviet newspapers (See appendix 1).67 Sachar describes the post Six Day War treatment of Jews in the media as the beginning of "an unprecedented propaganda campaign against Zionism as a 'world threat'." Soon thereafter, the anti-Zionist campaign translated into anti-Semitism, described by Kychko as the, "[c]hauvinistic idea of the God-Chosenness of the Jewish people, the propaganda of messiah and the idea of ruling over the people of the world." This campaign persisted in 1974 as extracts of Vladimir Begun's Creeping Counter-Revolution were extensively republished in the media, describing the Bible is "an unsurpassed textbook of bloodthirstiness, hypocrisy, treason, perfidy and moral degeneracy."70 Parts of a Tsarist anti-Semitic pamphlet put out by the Black Hundred was reproduced in 1972 reminding Jews of their anti-Semitic ridden past and further encouraging hopelessness for a future in the USSR." Johnson, writing A History of the Jews, explains how "the sheer volume of the material, ranging from endlessly repetitive articles and broadcasts to full-scale books," had a comprehensive impact on the Soviet Jewry and "began to rival the Nazi output." 72 It can therefore be understood why, emigration accounting for the causality of 29% of Soviet-Jewish immigrations to Israel.74 The anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist campaign stemming from the Six Day War was along with discrimination the most significant factor in incentivising Jews to emigrate from the USSR. On the other hand, historian Stuart Altshauer, argues that "there was doubt raised about whether the mounting anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union was 'reality' or more 'perception'," challenging the evidence offered in the form of survey material as being overly anecdotal. Nonetheless, interviews were shown to be supported by hard empirical data (i.e. university admissions of Jews, numbers of articles by Soviet press published on Zionism) that substantiate the claim that anti-Semitism was crucial. Another challenge to the central thesis was offered by Soviet historians working within the state-prescribed contention that their system was to be presented as superior, and therefore did not admit to national disunity, discrimination and anti-Semitism. This is clearly seen in Onikov's memorandum, analysed in the next section, where he removes all Soviet responsibility for Jewish incentive to emigrate." Onikov asserts, albeit as a member of the party apparatus and in a highly subjective manner, that discrimination and anti-Semitism were largely a consequence of Jewish emigration, because as betrayers of the motherland "they could not be trusted."77 Therefore, Social discrimination and anti-Semitism were the most significant long- term as well as short-term factors in increasing emigration to Israel. Goldstein's argument that "the activists in the movement were pushed out of the USSR, rather then pulled towards settling in Israel" emphasises why discrimination was causal. The oppressive socio- economic climate encouraged identification with Exodus 's characters and their similar narrative, leading Jews to turn to the solution offered by Exodus; an Aliyah to Israel.
Soviet policy and International Relations
The Soviet regime, lacking any official policy towards emigration, never attempted to determine the causes for Jews' incentive to emigrate. Onikov's memorandum to the CPSU79 "differs substantially from all the others in that it alone, among all those known to us, made a serious attempt to rationally explain the reasons for the mass emigration of the Jewish population from the USSR 80. Onikov, permitted to research out of his sphere of responsibility, interviewed departing Jews personally collecting the information on which his memorandum was based. Onikov addressed the discrimination against Jews in employment as well as 'crude errors' (anti-Semitic attacks) in anti-Zionist publications and suggested the necessity for their consideration as factors causing emigration. The difficulties of the author given his position within the party apparatus to rationalise the reasons for Jewish emigration, are evident in his claim that individuals choosing to emigrate were "stupefied by bourgeois propaganda. Such bias limits reliable conclusions on the causes for Jewish emigration; regarding anti-Semitism, 'there is nothing more behind 'insults' than well known Jewish mistrust' and that their 'psychological reaction to real or imagined insults is quite acute,' due to the Jewish inferior complexity', revealing the author's own anti-Semitic paradigm. The memorandum concludes by suggesting a number of measures to decrease emigration: granting Jews permission to historical material, establishing Jewish schools and decreasing anti-Semitic materials. Although none of his suggestions were enacted, Onikov was criticised by the CPSU Secretariat, nearly losing his position. Others argue that Soviet policy was the deciding factor in determining the quotas of Jewish emigrants. Changes in policy were most influential in the rise of emigration, according to Frankel and Bitov, who challenged the central thesis by interpreting the profusion of anti-Semitic propaganda as "contradictory" and "as reflecting the lack of agreement and outright conflict characteristic of Soviet policy towards the Jewish question during this same period."
E. Conclusion
Exodus encouraged Jews to fulfil the Zionist agenda, though did not have a direct causal relationship with the rise of emigration. For Volvovsky Exodus was an event in the ethnic identity of diaspora Jews," instilling in Jewish readers a pride in being Jewish and revealing alternatives to the socio-economic and politically oppressive Soviet climate. Exodus undoubtedly sustained unparalleled appeal and significantly affected Soviet Jewry in the intensification of national consciousness and the appreciation of Zionism. However, the decision to emigrate was contingent on other factors, more significant in causing the mass Exodus of Soviet Jewry to Israel. It was discrimination evident in decreasing university admittances, anecdotal accounts of discrimination in the workplace and the vulgar anti- Semitic campaign that compelled Jews to emigrate. The long-term and short-term affects of anti-Semitism and socio-economic discrimination allow them to best fulfil the criteria of "significance", clearly causal as the most selected option in survey results. Soviet policy towards Jews was inconsistent and was mostly used as a ploy to please Western public opinion and thus does not bear substantial significance in causing the rise of Jewish emigration, instead its role was to facilitate it. For more accurate conclusions on the significance of differing causes further investigation in archives is demanded to obtain the numbers of Jews who applied annually to leave the USSR though were denied the right to by Soviet authorities.F. Bibliography
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