World: Anti-Cosmopolitanism

In Soviet Russia, “cosmopolitan” is a dirty word, and it is once again increasingly applied to the Soviet Union’s 3,000,000 Jews.

Interest in Israel and loyalty to the “alien” Jewish religion were severely punished by Stalin, who sent hundreds of Jewish artists and intellectuals to jail and killed many others. Under Khrushchev, anti-Semitism seemed to abate. While there are now no Jews in the eleven-member Party Presidium, there are prominent Jewish officers in the army, and many Russian space scientists are Jews. In recent years Khrushchev’s regime has permitted limited publication of works by famed Jewish Writer Sholom Aleichem, allowed Jewish theatrical and variety troupes to be formed. Three months ago, the Kremlin for the first time in years authorized a Yiddish-language magazine (carefully controlled, of course).

But the campaign against Jewish “nationalism” was only dormant. Throughout the thaw, a steady trickle of anti-Semitic propaganda reminded Russian Jews that official policy had only moderated, not changed. Such traditional Jewish practices as circumcision, bar mitzvah, and the baking of unleavened bread drew sneering allusions in the Soviet press to “fanatics of the Talmud,” who practice “cruelty rituals.” In August Kiev’s humorous monthly Perets (Pepper) lumped Jews, Nazis and Konrad Adenauer together in a grotesque front-page cartoon that placed the swastika inside the Star of David. Then came a harsher reminder. To jail last month, for sentences ranging from three to twelve years, went a respected leader of Leningrad Jewry, Gedalia Pechersky, 60, along with five other prominent Leningrad and Moscow Jews.

Pechersky’s alleged crime: passing intelligence information to agents of a foreign embassy during religious services. The embassy was Israel’s, and the agent was Diplomat Yaakov Sharett, son of ex-Premier Moshe Sharett, who was expelled by the Russians earlier this year. In part, the imprisonment of the Jewish leaders seemed like retaliation for the sentencing in Israel of several “agents of foreign powers” as spies in recent months. But clearly it was also a renewed attack on “cosmopolitanism.” Last week, as word leaked out that three more Jews had been jailed, the Russians seemed embarrassed by the worldwide publicity. The news agency Tass accused the West of insulting “the honor of hundreds of thousands of Jews who work in all branches of our economy and culture.” Significantly, Tass distributed its protest only abroad.