Great Aliyah and unreleased events related to Georgia - Diplomat Magazine

Aliyah - The return of the Jews to their homeland is an important event in the history of the Jewish people following the creation of a new state of Israel in 1948. The horrific tragedy of the Holocaust was a clear indication of the vulnerability of Jews, so one of the goals of the Fathers of the State of Israel became the return of Jews scattered throughout the world as a result of the Holocaust.

The repatriation of Jews progressed unhindered in most countries, but in the Soviet Union, more problems emerged. Those left behind the Soviet Iron Curtain unsuccessfully demanded the right to return to Israel, which was mostly due to the communist regime’s repression. Before the early 1990s, only a few thousand Jews managed to leave the Soviet Union, but a real turnaround followed the launch of “perestroika” in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s relatively loyal rule gave Soviet Jewry a hope for Aliyah, and the Israeli government took action.

Unlike European or African repatriation, Soviet Aliyah had to be the largest and most technically challenging. A complicating fact was the many years of severed diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Israel. In the late 1980s, the Soviet leadership first eased repressive pressure and then finally agreed to allow Jews in the Soviet Union to leave the country. The repatriation mission was to be carried out by the Jewish Agency (Sohnut, JAFI).

In the autumn of 1989, for the first time in the territory of the Soviet Union, the first international Jewish organization, the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), was established in Georgia, and then the official representative office of the Jewish Agency was launched after. This also led to the start of the Great Aliyah, and the historic event marked the return of up to a million Jews to Israel.

It should be noted that the Zionist movement in the Soviet Union never stopped. Despite the brutal treatment of Jews by the repressive regime, certain groups or individuals repeatedly demanded that the government allow them leave the Soviet Union, but their demands were turned down. In the 1970s and 1980s, the term “Otkaznik” appeared as a reference to Soviet citizens who had been denied permission to “emigrate” to Israel by the authorities of the Soviet Union.

In 1987, the “Otkazniks” held a crowded rally in Leningrad, which was later broadcasted by the Soviet authorities. They were released from prisons. The name Prisoners of Zion was used to describe prominent Soviet Zionists imprisoned by the Soviet regime on trumped-up charges.

Richard Schifter, an American diplomat who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1985-1992, recalls several discussions had with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze over obtaining the right to leave the country. In a letter to Georgian diplomat Tedo Japaridze, Schifter noted that negotiations with the “Otkazniks” were being held directly with the Soviet foreign minister. In 1987, he tried to convince Shevardnadze that denying anyone the right to leave the country was a gross violation of internationally recognized human rights norms and the agreement signed by the Soviet Union. The diplomat highlights Eduard Shevardnadze’s positive attitude towards problematic issues and points out that Shevardnadze played a great role on the path to peace and freedom. And indeed, a few weeks after Schifter met with the Soviet foreign minister Shevardnadze, some of the “Otkazniks” received visas to leave the country.

Eduard Shevardnadze’s contribution to the resolution of issues related to Soviet Jewry is especially noteworthy. Eduard Shevardnadze himself writes in his book “Thoughts on the Past and the Future,” that despite being the first representative of Soviet Georgia, he had to face a difficult problem at that time, such as the “emigration” of the Jews to Israel. “The Soviet leadership was doing everything then to prevent Jews from returning to their historic homeland, Israel ... I then facilitated the departure of dozens of Jews to their homeland. This was the beginning of the “ascent” from the Soviet Union to Israel,” Shevardnadze wrote, recalling what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told him: “We will always remember that you played a central role in opening the Iron Curtain of the former Soviet Union and allowing Jews to enter Israel.”

The Jewish issue was the main topic of a meeting held in February 1989 in Moscow with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the President of the World Jewish Congress, Edgar Bronfman, the head of the Jewish Agency, Simcha Dinitz, and the Chairman of the Jewish Agency Supervisory Board, Mendel Kaplan. It was the first and unprecedented high-level platform where the Kremlin officially hosted a representative of world Jewry, thus recognizing the Jewish nation’s identity and its sovereign right to repatriate to its historic homeland.

The meeting turned out to be fruitful. World Jewish leaders received approval from the Soviet government to allow the Jewish Agency to enter the country, and Eduard Shevardnadze personally instructed that the World Jewish Agency began its work in Georgia, as the most loyal republic to Jewry.

After the visit, Dinitz informed the leadership of the Jewish Agency that “the Jewish world still did not know what task it was facing in the Soviet Union. The life of the Jews there were on the verge of a revolution, the significance of which can only be compared to the creation of the state of Israel.” Dinitz urged the Jewish agency to use the opportunity to show Soviet Jewry Israel’s true capability.

The world of Jewry at that time had one goal in common - to fight for Aliyah from the USSR. A clear sign of this were the multimillion-dollar rallies in Israel and around the world which were an appeal to the Soviet government - “LET MY PEOPLE GO!”

The leadership of the Jewish Agency was well aware that there were several circumstances in the heart of the Jewish communities themselves that required in-depth analysis. The representatives of the Jewish Agency were, of course, obliged to act with great care, while respecting the unique culture of each community and, in practice, taking into account the special needs of each local Jewish community.

Yitzhak Rabin and Itsik Moshe

In June 1989, Mendel Kaplan and Simcha Dinitz invited a renowned Sovietologist, Professor Baruch Gur, to join them on a new task related to the Soviet Union.

It was necessary to organize the repatriation of the Jews, for Israel to have official contacts with the Soviet state. The first organization to enter the Soviet Union and start operating in Georgia was the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) in 1989.

It is noteworthy that at the meeting with Edgar Bronfman, Shevardnadze’s decision was to start working with the Jewish world, including the Jewish Agency and WUJS, from Georgia, the republic most loyal to Jewry.

The entry of WUJS in Georgia (Soviet Union) was followed by a great response in the Israeli and international media. The World Union of Jewish Students from Israel was represented in Georgia by WUJS Head of Foreign Affairs Itsik Moshe, who took four young people from Georgia to Israel to meet with Jewish youths from around the world before the opening of the Tbilisi office.

“All four students will return to their home country accompanied by a WUJS representative to assist them in setting up a newly established and highly regarded Jewish student organization in the world,” the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported in August 1989.

After the students returned to Georgia, in the fall of 1989, Itsik Moshe opened the first branch of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) in the Soviet Union in Tbilisi.

After the opening of WUJS in Tbilisi, in the early 1990s, the World Union of Jewish Students held its 21st International Congress in Israel, which was attended by delegates from the Soviet Union (Georgia) for the first time. Although Georgia was

still a Soviet republic, the tricolor flag of independent Georgia was hoisted next to the Israeli and US flags at the congress. As the representatives of the Georgian delegation recall, it was an expression of solidarity with the national movement in Georgia and in the Soviet Union in general, as the ongoing processes throughout the Soviet Union also gave hope to Jewry.

Meeting of representatives of Sokhnut and president Zviad Gamsakhurdia

The World Union of Jewish Students was the first test in the USSR to produce a result. Soon the organization began preparations for the first Congress of Soviet Jewish Youth, an event that was to be hosted by Tbilisi. Before that, Georgia had moved from being the republic with the first representation in the Soviet Union, to having a Jewish agency.

The first steps of the Jewish Agency in the Soviet Union started from Georgia. With Jewish emigration going on for more than two decades, Georgia always has expressed a tolerant attitude towards Jewry.

On August 6, 1969, a letter was sent to the UN by 18 Jewish families living in Georgia requesting that they influence the Soviet authorities to allow them to leave for Israel. It was the first document created for Aliyah in the Soviet Union, which received a great response in the international community. The mass Aliyah of Jews from Georgia started in 1971 and according to the available data, by 1981 several thousand Georgian Jews had migrated to Israel.

According to the 1989 census, there were more than 30,000 Jews living in Georgia.

Following the open work of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), there was no need for barriers to be created while working officially on Aliyah. Israel began to think about the entry of the Jewish Agency into the Soviet Union, which would help to organize the return of Jews to their homeland.

In the early 1990s, the leadership of the Jewish Agency chose 29-year-old Itsik Moshe, an Israeli citizen born in Georgia and whose name was already associated with the introduction of

WUJS in the USSR, as the head of the first the Jewish Agency mission in the Soviet Union. The choice was made for Itsik Moshe not because he was born in Georgia, but because he was an Israeli youth whose name was associated with organizing several pro-Israel rallies across the Soviet Union.

Arnon Mantver, then Director-General of the Immigration and Absorption Department of the Jewish Agency, noted at the launch of the Great Aliyah that the creators of Aliyah, Itsik Moshe and other like minded people, played a major role in Aliyah’s success. Georgia became a central place at the beginning of Aliyah.

In March 1990, Itsik Moshe, the official representative of the Jewish Agency, arrived in Tbilisi, and he began working with Jews, by introducing them to Israel, and telling them about the importance of Aliyah. They soon launched Hebrew courses to teach them the language and culture.

Itsik Moshe recalls that amid the weakening of the communist regime, he was soon able to find common ground with Soviet Georgian officials.

Itsik Moshe established contacts with the Mayor of the capital, Tbilisi, and his administration, school principals, media representatives and, most importantly, he established these contacts as a representative of the state of Israel. When the envoy from the Jewish Agency raised the issue of opening a representative office of the Jewish Agency before the Georgian authorities, despite his personal positive attitude, the authorities found themselves in the middle of two waters. It was difficult for Tbilisi to make a decision without Moscow, despite the verbal instructions of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eduard Shevardnadze.

Prior to the opening of the delegation, Itsik Moshe also received some pessimistic messages from the leaders of the Jewish Diaspora.

“I did not sleep at night, because the disruption of the opening of the Jewish Agency representation meant the failure of the big plan for the return of the Jews. The situation demanded immediate action. In the morning I called one of the influential officials and the editor-in-chief of the leading newspaper “Public Education”, Professor Apolon Silagadze, and asked for help in a meeting with the Mayor of Tbilisi, Irakli Andriadze. My calculation was to strike an agreement before the relevant instruction from Moscow arrives, and get the local government to agree to open a representative office. I wanted the Jewish Agency to be located in an official building,” Itsik Moshe recalls.

Professor Apolon Silagadze, the editor of the newspaper “Public Education”, who, according to backstage information, was preparing for the Prime Minister post, was one of them, who did not hide his kind attitude towards the representation of the Jewish Agency in Georgia.

The meeting with Tbilisi Mayor Irakli Andriadze through the mediation of Professor Silagadze was held on the same day and an agreement was reached. A contract was signed, according to which the Jewish agency in Georgia would be situated in the building of Tbilisi City Hall. This was how the first representa-

tive of the Jewish Agency in the Soviet Union was found in the building of the State Agency, next to the office of the Soviet Security Service.

At the end of 1990, after the leaders of the National Movement came to power in Georgia, the Jewish Agency delegation was accredited, but before that it already had the consent of the Georgian government to start its activities.

“We understood that Israel could become a strategic partner of Georgia,” the first foreign minister of independent Georgia, Giorgi Khoshtaria recalls, adding that during their rule, Aliyah received maximum support.

Finally, between 1989-2005, a total of 22,589 people moved from Georgia to live in Israel. During this period, hundreds of Jews also moved to Europe, the United States, and Canada.

In the late 1980s, the activity of Jewish youth movements in the Soviet Union gave rise to the idea of holding a Jewish Youth Congress in the Soviet Union.

The congress was held in September 1990 in Tbilisi under the auspices of the Jewish Agency (JAFI) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS). It was attended by delegates from 46 cities of the Soviet Union.

Itsik Moshe, the representative of the Jewish Agency in Georgia, recalls that on that day Jews appeared on the central avenue of Tbilisi with Kippahs and cars with Israeli flags. A few hours before the event, at the request of Moscow, a call came from the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Soviet Georgia to the Jewish Agency and demanded the cancellation of the planned congress. This was the first signal from the Soviet regime, sent to the representative of Israel, that the rules of the game were being dictated by “others”.

“It is a great and wonderful right to be a follower of the path of Zionism in the Soviet Union under the auspices of the Student Department of the World Zionist Organization,” Israeli President Chaim Herzog said in a welcoming speech to Congress.

Whilst trying to solve issues related to Aliyah, the Jewish Agency’s representatives in Georgia were also carrying out diplomatic functions for Israel. At meetings with Baruch Gur, Charles Bronfman, and Mendel Kaplan, the head of the delegation Itsik Moshe, convinced them that before the opening of the Israeli embassy in the Soviet Union, the Jewish Agency would prepare the local Jewish community for Aliyah, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it would establish multilateral contacts of state importance with the leaders of the region, and the Jewish Agency would work to deepen cooperation with them.

The first major visit of world Jewry to Georgia took place in the summer of 1991 at the request of Itsik Moshe and it was organized by the Jewish Agency. Baruch Gur, the head of the Jewish Agency Soviet Union, brought a South African billionaire of Jewish descent, metallurgist Mendel Kaplan to Tbilisi. Kaplan was hosted by Georgian Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua, and at the meeting with the Prime Minister, the parties agreed on cooperation.

In August of the same year, Simcha Dinitz, head of the Jewish Agency; Charles Bronfman, a Canadian businessman of

Jewish descent; Baruch Gur, head of the Soviet Union in the Jewish Agency; and Arnon Mantver, Director of the Immigration and Absorption Department of the Jewish Agency; visited Tbilisi. One of the purposes of their visit was to deepen ties with the Georgian government.

Meeting of Israeli friendship group

“The main significance of the visit is that this will present Georgia to the world, which we really need today,” the Georgian press wrote.

The first official meeting was held with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gogi Khoshtaria, who told the guests that Georgia is ready to stand by the Jewish Agency, and that the ministry is eager to establish partnership relations with Israel.

“Moscow would not be happy with Georgian-Israeli relations. We never asked for Israel to recognize an independent Georgia because we did not want to put it in an awkward situation, but it was as clear as two times two makes four that Israel should be one of the real allies,” the first head of foreign ministry of independent Georgia recalls, adding that he had direction from President Gamsakhurdia to establish close contacts with leading countries, including Israel.

The delegation held the next meetings with Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua and President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

Bronfman promised the Georgian government to support the export of Georgian agricultural products to the world market.

President Zviad Gamsakhurdia also received guests in the port city of Poti in western Georgia. Itsik Moshe, a participant in the meeting, recalls that President Gamsakhurdia asked the head of the Jewish Agency Simcha Dinitz, to begin negotiations on strategic cooperation with Israel. In response, Dinitz promised the host that he would inform the Israeli government of the request and he would inform the government of his position. A few days later, a famous coup took place in Moscow (August 18, 1991), which aggravated the situation in Georgia. Although there was an oral response from Israel almost a week after the meeting about the readiness to establish close ties between the two countries, due to the growing internal tensions, no one

in Georgia could spare time for the strategic cooperation with Israel.

In January 1993, the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia - Head of State Eduard Shevardnadze sent a letter to the head of the Jewish Agency, Simcha Dinitz, inviting him to Georgia together with Professor Baruch Gur. Shevardnadze notes in the letter that the Jewish Agency worked tirelessly in Georgia not only for Jewry, but for the whole country and to strengthen its future ties with both Israel and world Jewry.

Eduard Shevardnadze also expressed his gratitude to the head of the Soviet Union’s the Jewish Agency representation and pointed out that Baruch Gur had shown great attitude in initiating bilateral cooperation between the Jewish Agency and Georgia.

According to the newspaper Hadashot, at one of the briefings the Georgian head of state said that he would be happy if he saw Itsik Moshe as the official representative of Israel in Georgia. Baruch Gur, who was the immediate supervisor of Itsik Moshe at the time said that due to the scale of Moshe’s work in the Jewish Agency and the wide range of activities of Itsik Moshe, it would not be appropriate to put him in the frames of the ambassadorial work.

The success of the Jewish Agency in Georgia prompted the Jewish Agency leadership to expand the agency’s area of operation in the Soviet Union. By the summer of 1990, Itsik Moshe had been instructed by Baruch Gur, the head of the Soviet’s the Jewish Agency branch, to open a representative office in Azerbaijan. No Israeli official had visited the country before that time.

On arrival in Baku, Itsik Moshe suggested to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Soviet Azerbaijan, Huseynagha Sadigov, that the representation of the Jewish Agency in Azerbaijan be under the representation of Tbilisi, which was unacceptable to the Minister. Sadigov proposed that the Jewish Agency have an independent representation in Azerbaijan, as that would be the only condition for Baku’s agreement to open it. The Jewish Agency office soon opened in Baku, and the Jewish Agency moved into an apartment in the state agency building.

In the summer of 1990, the Jerusalem Post reported that Itsik Moshe had received a special appeal from an official of the Azerbaijani government, emphasizing Azerbaijan’s request to the head of the Jewish Agency, Simcha Dinitz, to open a representative office of the Jewish Agency in Muslim Azerbaijan.

The visit to Azerbaijan was indeed a historic event for the Jewish Agency, as it was the first Islamic country where a Jewish agency began operating.

Under the leadership of Itsik Moshe, the Jewish Agency opened its representations in the Central Asian republics and the Russian Federation the following year, and began the irreversible process of a large-scale Soviet Aliyah. However, in parallel with the repatriation of the Jews, the Jewish Agency representations were the first link from Israel, which laid the foundation for state relations first with the Soviet and then with other independent republics.