Canadian Press - 02.17.2004

Jewish emigrants return to Russia after encountering setbacks in Israel

By FRED WEIR

MOSCOW (CP) - Oleg Khait fled the Soviet Union in 1990 seeking a better life and safe haven as a Jew in Israel. Today he says he's found what he was looking for - back in Russia. 

"The whole family wanted to come back to Russia," says the 43-year-old language teacher who says he's amazed at how Moscow is booming with new business, intellectual and cultural activity. 

"Israel is fine but we always felt like outsiders there." 

Despite increasing terrorism in Russia, including the subway bombing in Moscow earlier this month that killed 39 people, he says "we are sure coming back was the right decision." 

Khait and his family are among the estimated 50,000 former Soviet Jews who've decided to return in recent years, driven not only by economic crisis and security nightmare in Israel but also by unexpected social stability and fresh opportunities opening up in Russia. 

It's not quite a flood, but the surge of reverse emigration has raised hopes among some community activists that the historic Jewish presence in Russia may not be ending. 

At a recent Kremlin meeting, Russia's chief Rabbi Berl Lazar told President Vladimir Putin that "Jewish life is once again on the rise in Russia." 

"Jews are discovering that they can stay here and live at the same level as anywhere else in the world," he said. 

The number of Jews in Russia plummeted from 540,000 to just 230,000 between the censuses of 1989 and 2002, as Jews seized upon the Soviet breakdown as a chance to get out. 

Many of those who left the U.S.S.R. and early post-Soviet Russia recall being exhausted with economic hardship and terrified that traditional Russian anti-Semitism might erupt into anti-Jewish pogroms. But life in Israel presented other kinds of difficulties. 

"They called us 'sausage immigrants' in Israel, as if we were just looking for a handout," says Joseph Krongauz, a 73-year-old construction consultant who went to Israel with his wife in 1995. 

Though the couple never learned to speak Hebrew, he says there were few problems adapting. 

"All the shops around our home in Tel Aviv were Russian; we socialized mainly with Russians," he says. 

But finding work was impossible. The Israeli government cut social benefits and the security situation grew more tense. 

"The young manage well, but it's awfully hard for middle-aged people to feel at home in Israel or to find work in their own professions," he says. 

Krongauz decided to return to Russia after former colleagues in Moscow called and offered him a consulting position three years ago. 

"Now I'm back, working at a great job and never been happier," he says. "It's wonderful to feel needed at my age." 

While Israel plunged into economic recession and has been rocked by escalating terrorism over the last three years, Russia has seen a long spurt of economic growth and rising national confidence under Putin. 

Sergei Barabash, 28, a computer programmer who emigrated to Israel as a teenager in 1990, says he decided to return to Russia after visiting Moscow as a tourist recently. 

"I realized this was not the country I left," he says. "It's much more interesting here. I'm not saying I've made up my mind permanently, but I'm going to give Russia a try." 

Some experts argue that the back-and-forth movements of ex-Soviet Jews are simply a tribute to the freedom and mobility of the post-Iron Curtain world. 

"There are no borders any more, so people can come to Russia to get educated, start businesses or whatever," says Semyon Dovzhik, press secretary for the Jewish Agency in Moscow, which encourages Russian Jews to emigrate to Israel. 

"We can't say this is a really big problem." 

Zinovy Kogan, rabbi at Moscow's Poklonnaya Gora Synagogue, says many recent returnees have come to him with conflicted emotions. 

"They want to be Jews and feel guilty that they've left Israel," he says. 

"Our task here is to make them feel comfortable with their choices and help them regain their Russian sense of Jewishness." 

"These people have had a long journey," he says. "They left the U.S.S.R. as Jews, but arrived in Israel as Russians. Now they must get used to the idea that here they will be called Jews again, not Russians." 

But he insists the trend is a hopeful one. 

"Jews have lived for centuries in Russia, and through all this time managed to preserve and develop their culture," he says. "It shows great strength for them to come back here, and express their freedom in Russia."