Efforts of this nature may not always prove effective. but they make it clear that those who remain locked within the borders of the Soviet Union are not forgotten. The depth of this tragedy of human rights abuses in the Soviet Union was brought home to me in a personal way last year when I had the opportunity to visit with refusenik families in Moscow. Their dream of emigrating from the Soviet Union is not lightly held for. as one elderly refusenik explained. the request to emigrate condemns oneself and ones family to a treadmill of despair as long as they remain in the Soviet Union. While Soviet Jewry may not confront physical extermination today. it is clear that cultural genocide has been given free rein and that there is no toleration for Jewish national. cultural. and religious identity. Teaching Hebrew is forbidden. and those who do so suffer harsh penalties. Rabbis are the employees of the State. and synagogues. as one refusenik told me. are no longer Houses of God but branches of a threeletter ministrythe KGB. Those who seek to emigrate often find themselves demoted in their jobs if not fired. and others. like scientists. find themselves stripped of their degrees. Jewish children also face ridicule and ostracization at school. At the same time that Jewish culture is being eviscerated. antiSemitism is on the rise. The AntiZionist Committee in the Soviet Union recently alleged that the vast majority of Jews who wish to leave the Soviet Union have already done so. even though Jewish organizations in the West have credible reason to believe that more than 300.000 Russian Jews want to emigrate. AntiSemitic propaganda appears as well in newspaper articles and in media broadcasts. While Jewish people are allowed no peace in the Soviet Union today. out of that adversity have arisen heroic men and women like Anatoly Shcharansky.
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emigrate emigrating