The Soviet antiSemitic campaign is. as Mark Decter observed last year in Foreign Affairs quarterly. an effort "to intimidate and atomize Soviet Jewry. to isolate it both from its past and from its brethren in other parts of the world. to destroy its specifically Jewish spirit." The reasons for this campaign are to be found in the contradictions of the Soviet worldview and current Soviet policies. As Decter adds: Soviet policy places the Jews in an inextricable vise. They are allowed neither to assimilate. nor live a full Jewish life. nor to emigrate (as many would wish) to Israel or any other place where they might live freely as Jews. The policy stems. in turn. from doctrinal contradictions abetted by traditional antiJewish sentiments. On the one hand. the authorities want the Jews to assimilate. on the other hand. they irrationally fear the full penetration of Soviet life which assimilation implies.
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