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P«|« « THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 23, 1977
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by William Korey
The just-published I977 Soviet
statistical yearbook (Narodnoc
khoziaistvo) throws a glaring
light on what the future holds for
Soviet Jews. It is scarcely
encouraging.
The statistical table on the
enrollment of students in higher
education reveals that, in the
academic year 1975-76, only
66,900 Jews were to be found in
Soviet universities. In the course of
but seven years, 1969-76, the
number of Jewish students in
higher education has declined by
over 40 per cent.
Until 1968, the number of Jews
in Soviet universities had annually
continued to climb, reaching a
total of 111,900. And this despite
restrictive quotas which had been
introduced in the ’forties.
Aspiration for higher education,
the passport to success in modern
society, distinguished the Jew in
the USSR, just as it had elsewhere
in the Western world. When Stalin
shut the doors to the Jews in the
Helds of politics, diplomacy,
foreign trade, and other military
security areas, they could
nonetheless enter, via a university
education, the scientific,
technological and cultural worlds.
A statistical monthly in 1974
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indicated that Jews comprise 14
per cent of the holders of
doctorates of science, outdis
tancing in absolute figures all
Soviet nationalities except Great
Russians. The Jewish population
constitutes less than I per cent of
the total Soviet public.
The year 1968 marked, however,
the appearance in the Communist
world of a new, although scarcely
Marxist, ideological perception
about Jews and their role in higher
education. The leading Polish
Communist theoretician, Andrzej
Werblan, no doubt with the
encouragement of the Kremlin,
wrote an authoritative article in
June, 1968, which concluded that
Jews have a “particular
susceptibility to revisionism” (i.e.,
reformism) and to “Jewish
nationalism in general and to
Zionism in particular.”
Werblan argued that the
“concentration...of people of
Jewish origin” in universities and
other cultural institutions had
created a “bad political
atmosphere.” He recommended
“the correcton of the irregular
ethnic composition” in higher
education.
Andrei Sakharov, the
distinuished Soviet physicist and
dissenter, in the same month,
detected that the Werblan thesis
was already Hnding expression in
the prestigious Soviet Academy of
Sciences. He bitterly asked: “Is it
not disgraceful to allow another
backsliding in our appointments
policy...?" The “backsliding," he
emphasized, was toward
anti-Semitic discrimination.
The Sakharov complaint was
disregarded. Instead, a leading
Kremlin ideologue, V. Mishin, in a
major work published in 1970, for
the first time officially justified the
use of a numerus clausus in
admission of students to Soviet
universities. The number of
students of each Soviet nationality
which may be admitted to higher
education, he contended, should
be restricted to the percentage of
that nationality of the total
population of the Soviet Union.
A total decline of 45,000 Jewish
students has quietly taken place. If,
in 1935, Jews constituted 13 per
cent of the Soviet student body in
higher education, today they
constitute but 1.3 per cent.
One can only speculate as to
how far the plunge of Jewish
student enrollment will go. It
might stabilize at some 40,000—
which accords with the percentage
of Jews in the population. But with
the current heavy rate of decline-
some 10,000 to 12,000 per
annum—one could approach zero
in but a half-dozen years. This year
not a single Jew was admitted to
the University of Moscow.
As the number of Jews admitted
to Soviet universities declines,
Jews will disappear from post
graduate work. A Soviet statistical
journal, in April, 1974, already
revealed a drop of 30 per cent on
the post-graduate level—from
4,945 to 3,456.
The eventual result will be the
large-scale removal of Jews from
scientific fields. The number of
Jews who have become “scientific
workers” in recent years has
ominously declined from 2,500 per
annum to 1,000 per annum.
The trend is clear and
foreboding: the future of Soviet
Jewry, if there is any, is
unreservedly bleak.
William Korey is director of the
f?nai Frith international council.
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WNN KAYTMTTM Lf WUffL
(Impression of Israel, 1977)
by Ron Balser
From Chavenu Sholom Alechem to Masada,
I cried inside.
Tears of pride when I touched Jewish soil
Tears of love when hearts of Kibbutzniks touched mine
Tears oi fear and confusion at Yad Vashem
Tears of guilt and humility at Masada
Tears of pity for the Arab child with his hand out
Tears of thanks for the Jewish child with his head up
I learned also...
From a P. O. W., what strength is,
From the Good Fence, what compassion is,
From the Border, what restraint is,
From the Wall, what tradition is,
From our guides, what conviction is,
From our people, what Chutzpah is,
And from the Bar Mitzva boy,
Now cold in his military grave,
That Israel is a land of a people who cultivate life
from tears...
And a people of a land which returns only the right
to live and die...
With dignity.
