It`s just like any other office. There`s a perpetual state of urgency in the air, people are talking on the phone, someone is anxiously awaiting a delivery, and there`s a group of people huddled around the conference/lunch table, eating.
The only thing missing is a time sheet. And for these workers it`s not necessary. Five-day work weeks are the norm-even if no one is getting paid. For these workers it`s a labor of care. They are here because they want to be, and many of them gave up paying jobs to be here.
For the volunteers who staff the Highland Park office of Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, their mission supersedes any desire for monetary gain. Their goal is to keep the line of communications open between human rights activists in this country and Jews in the former Soviet Union and to educate the people there on how to beat government bureaucracy and ultimately leave. In addition, they must keep the public aware of the Soviet Jews` plight. With the recent changes in the Soviet bloc, it is not clear to the public that Soviet Jews are victims, or even potential victims, according to the organization.
U.S. Rep. John Porter, a Wilmette Republican, has worked extensively with the group and said the danger to Jews in the former Soviet Union is alarming. ”There is a lot of anti-Semitism,” he said. ”One hopes, of course, that the component parts of the Soviet Union will become societies grounded in the rule of law, and people will be able to live in peace, but who can know whether fascism will replace communism with problems even greater for Jews.” Because there is a substantial Soviet community in the Chicago area,
”people forget that there are three million Jews who are still there. They are still scared,” said Marillyn Tallman, co-chairwoman of Chicago Action.
Beginning with Mikhail Gorbachev and the Nobel Peace Prize he received, Tallman said, Americans began to think things were getting better for Jews in Russia. ”People think it`s all over and that anyone who wants to get out can get out. When they tell us that, we send them a list of refuseniks, people who are still being refused (the right to emigrate).
”They think that anti-Semitism must be over because there is now democracy.” And, said Tallman with a sigh, ”I think this is an inaccurate reading of present history.”
Her co-chairwoman, Pamela Braun Cohen, adamantly agrees. In April at Helsinki II, the meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, it was reported by Yuri Orlov, one of the most well-known human rights champions and a non-Jewish political prisoner in the Soviet Union for 11 years, that fascism is on the rise.
”He said that Russia today reminds him exactly of Germany before World War II,” Cohen said. ”There is enormous inflation, polarization of society between communists and fascists and a hopelessness of a people.” He asked,
`How can people think that everything is okay in Russia?` ”
Basically, what is going on in the former Soviet Union now is ”against all rule of human rights,” Cohen said. ”In simplest terms, there is a rise of fascism, rise of anti-Semitism and lack of rule of law.
”Everybody is suffering-there is a lack of food, no real structure for government or economy. . . . People . . . for 70 years identified themselves as communists building a great society. They were willing to make every sacrifice because the ends would justify the means. Now they have been left with nothing-a vacuum on the verge of mass implosion with civil wars breaking out all over, a country in torment.”
The creation of this vacuum and the rise of nationalism within these new countries that formerly comprised the Soviet Union have contributed to a frightening increase in the rise of anti-Semitism, Tallman said. ”You`re left with what history has shown us: People blame the Jews. They blame them for everything. It`s not just word of mouth. It`s in the printed word. Last summer there were big anti-Semitic slogans-horrible ones-on one of the main walls on the main street in Leningrad.”
In addition, she said that ”a couple hundred ultra-patriotic organizations” are on the rise again, including the most visible anti-Semitic one, Pamyat. ”This also includes the old cossacks from our grandparents`
days.”
Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry is one of almost 40 councils in the United States that make up the Union of Councils of Soviet Jews, of which Cohen is also the national president. The Chicago area organization began in 1972, and Tallman and Cohen became co-chairwomen in 1978.
Chicago Action has 75 to 100 active volunteers, with a daily core group of 10 to 13 people. There`s a volunteer board of directors that guides the organization in terms of finances and approved policy, a medical board that supports the medical help they give to people in the former Soviet Union, and a legal board.
Although their stationery says they have been the active voice of Soviet Jewry since 1972, not all of the volunteers are Jewish. They work with a Dutch Christian, Andrew Seelen, who has contact with Jews and other prisoners in the former Soviet Union and has traveled there on behalf of Chicago Action. Roberta Evensen of Arlington Heights has been volunteering for six years as
”recognition of the debt that Christians owe to Jews for our faith and spiritual heritage.”
”For us, this is a human rights movement with a strong Jewish association,” Cohen said.
Russia may be far away, but the distance doesn`t seem to affect the commitment of the Chicago Action volunteers. ”There`s usually a crisis atmosphere here because we reflect what`s happening in the former Soviet Union,” Tallman said. ”There is such a closeness that we feel. It`s part of history. We feel responsible for them and to them.”
Volunteer finance chairman Hetty De Leeuwe has worked in the group for 14 years. A Holocaust survivor, originally from Holland, De Leeuwe comes in almost five full days a week. ”It`s wonderful coming in this office,” De Leeuwe said. ”There`s friendship even if you never talk to each other. Sometimes it`s so busy you have no time, but nevertheless there is this atmosphere of all of us working for the same cause and trying to help people who are in desperate need of help.”
Their mandate from their membership is to help Jews in the former Soviet Union prepare for emigration by helping them technically in their attempts to leave and to sustain them in every way possible until they emigrate, Tallman said.
She noted, though, that some Jews will choose to stay in the former Soviet Union. ”We don`t think there is a future for a full, complete and satisfying Jewish community life in the (former Soviet Union). But we know there will be Jews who continue to live there, and they need our support, and our sustenance. They are equally important,” Tallman said.
One of the group`s main tasks is to monitor Jewish communities inthe former Soviet Union. It is a vast country with one-sixth of the world`s land mass and 11 time zones.
They speak to Kiev every week, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Alma-ata, Pashkent, Georgia and Tbliski. ”Our main questions to them are: What do you need? What is happening? What is the immigration status and problems? Describe the status of anti-Semitism in your community,” Tallman said.
Each local council acts independently in this pursuit, meaning the Jewish community in one city may get help from several of the American groups simultaneously.
The information gained from these calls is used to prepare press releases; to communicate with congressmen and, when deemed necessary, the State Department; to share with a network of people who have ”adopted”
communities and will send needed supplies; and to prepare tourists who are going to the former Soviet Union and wish to be of help by taking food, medicine and clothing.
Leonid and Natasha Stonov, now living in Skokie, were refuseniks who emigrated from Moscow in September 1990. Natasha makes 11 regularly scheduled phone calls for Chicago Action to Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union. Because Natasha speaks Russian, Tallman said, Chicago Action has been able to broaden its monitoring network and contacts for more information.
The Stonovs were leaders in the Jewish community of Moscow. Leonid works out of the Chicago Action office as the director of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews Bureau of Human Rights and Rule of Law, located in Moscow. The bureau is staffed by Soviet Jews and Americans who go over and volunteer a few weeks or a month at a time. They deal with immigration problems and assist with food and medicine distribution.
Because of her husband`s position, Natasha said it is easier for her to establish contacts in the communities she monitors. ”Their first reaction is very suspicious,” she said. But once she explains she is the wife of the well-known Leonid Stonov, she said, they become more trustful. ”Then they understand I am really a person who knows something.”
As a doctor, Natasha`s medical background makes it easy for her to get to the heart of their medical needs. ”I am able somehow to help them. It makes the contact much easier. I am happy to do it. It makes my life full and meaningful.”
Rabbi Sam Fraint of Moriah Congregation in Deerfield and Dr. Aaron Dworin of Highland Park went to the former Soviet Union last year to distribute medicine. Fraint said that because of Chicago Action`s efforts, they were able ”to bring medicine for specific ailments that specific people had.” In addition, he said, ”I was amazed at how many people knew Pam and Marillyn.” Fraint said that Cohen and Tallman are ”totally dedicated and devoted to the CASJ” and the idea ”that millions of Jews over there cannot be forgotten and millions of Jews here can`t let them be.”
Fraint said Chicago Action has gotten a ”tremendous amount of lay people involved and made them knowledgeable of the plight of Soviet Jewry.” Through Chicago Action`s bar/bat mitzvah twinning program, in which children in the United States are symbolically paired with children in the former Soviet Union, Fraint said, ”They have raised the awareness of younger people as well as adults.”
There is a big map of the former Soviet Union in the conference room of the Chicago Action office. Colored pins represent communities that Chicago-area synagogues have adopted. A representative of the synagogue usually makes the first phone call to a community representative from the Chicago Action office with the help of Natasha. The synagogue tries to meet the needs of the particular community in terms of food, medicine, clothing, books and equipment.
Equally as important as material goods is the reassurance that there is a synagogue in the West that cares about them, Tallman said. And in the case of seven communities in Siberia that represent about 50,000 Jews, this human contact is essential so ”they know they are not isolated and alone in the world,” she added.
These seven communities are linked by a group called the Greater Jewish Siberian Organization. It`s a frightening sign of the times that this organization has formed a network for the advance warning of randomly scheduled attacks on Jewish communities. Although Tallman doesn`t think it is likely that full-fledged pogroms will start again, she said that there have been isolated incidents of violence and murders and that these people are clearly frightened for their lives.
Can a small office in Highland Park, Ill., really affect a country in Siberia? According to Cohen and Tallman, there`s not a doubt, because of Chicago`s rank as one of the most important political centers in the United States.
The Chicago Council is one of the strongest councils in the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews because of this, Cohen said. ”For example, when Anatoly Shcharansky, who was one of the most well known of the Jewish dissidents, went on a very long hunger strike and was really close to dying, it was Chicago Action that felt that we had to focus the public`s attention on Shcharansky.”
The council organized a public forum in Lincoln Park dedicated to Shcharansky on Oct. 7, 1982, with appearances by then State`s Atty. Richard Daley and U.S. Sen. Alan J. Dixon.
”So, it was our way of being able to make sure that the public did not forget that innocent people were being subjected to brutality in concentration camps or prisons,” Cohen said. ”And that`s what Chicago Action has always done-working with the public, working with the press, educating with an eye always to creating political activity whether it is a letter-writing campaign or contact with Congress.”
Volunteer Jean Freed of Highland Park is the Chicago Action liaison to the Illinois congressional delegation. She writes letters, sends telegrams and makes phone calls-anything she can to keep them abreast of the situation in the former Soviet Union.
In September 1988, Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), arranged for himself, Freed and a mother and child who had been separated from their husband/father for more than one year to meet with Secretary of State George Schultz in Washington, D.C. The man had been refused emigration for more than 15 years, even though his parents and brother had emigrated eight years earlier. Praising Freed for her efforts, Tallman said it seemed more than just a coincidence that the man was allowed to leave six months later.
Cohen said the council has been fortunate to have Porter`s support. ”He understands what I don`t think the (Bush) administration understands and I`m afraid the American people may not want to address right now,” she said.
”We work with Pam and Marillyn every day in addressing human rights abuses in many places in the world. This has been a very close and shared relationship for as long as I`ve been in Congress (since 1980),” Porter said. Porter helped found the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, a bipartisan group, after traveling to the Soviet Union in 1982 under the auspices of the Union of Councils of Soviet Jewry. ”The idea was to form a group of members of Congress concerned with human rights abuses,” Porter said. ”It is now one of the largest associations in Congress, and of course Pam Cohen has become the chair of the union. All this would not have come about without the caring of the people in my district about the plight of Soviet Jews and my learning from them of the need for Congress to address their plight.”
Jo Minow, a director of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, said of Tallman, Cohen and their organization: ”I think they`re just really remarkable. There`s such a sense of dedication and love.
”I think they are the unsung heroines of this generation because they don`t get any fanfare. They just quietly go about saving human souls. Those nurturing phone calls they make before people do get out are lifelines to these people.
”I think it`s an extraordinary venture that they have embarked on in human rights. It gets a lot of attention in the former Soviet Union. I saw that when I was over there myself. The network has extended its tentacles.”
Cohen explained the council`s view: ”While we must address the domestic agenda, we have to recognize as well that the world is a very small place, and what happens somewhere across the world is in our own back yard, and it will hit us one way or another.
”There is enormous potential to move quickly to bring democracy to some of these countries, and if we simplify it by saying that everything is okay now, we cut off the discussion about what we can do to make sure it is okay, to help move it toward democracy. And what happens in Highland Park affects a country in Siberia.
”They need help much beyond dollars,” Cohen said. ”We need people in the community who are lawyers and professionals, and we need to hook them up with people in these countries to share theories. Our congressmen must meet with these people to discuss what rule of law based on human rights is and what advocacy is. And we need people to travel there.”
”Part of our role,” Tallman said, ”is to keep this issue in the public eye through the press, through meetings, through organizations, through our bulletin, through speeches and through radio.” To serve this point, the council regularly hosts receptions for foreign guests as well as former prisoners of conscience.
”Our goal is to have them come here and bring an accurate and current description of the situation as often as we can into the community to keep people informed,” Tallman said.
Last year Cohen was invited to speak to the Leningrad City Council-the first and only democratic majority in the former Soviet Union-about human rights, Tallman boasted. ”She was the first foreigner-let alone a Jew and a woman-to speak to the city council.”
”Basically, what I told them,” Cohen said, ”is that it`s very exciting that there`s a democratic majority here and that the world is watching you. We`ve been trying to hold up your end for the last 20 years. We`ve been fighting your battles, and now it`s your turn, and we consider ourselves your partners, and we will do whatever we can to be supportive.”
She received a standing ovation, and after it was all over, Cohen said Yuri Rybakov, head of the Human Rights Commission for the Leningrad City Council, came up to her and said in the tradition of a great Russian poet,
”We don`t know what to do.”
”Basically,” Tallman said, ”she told him that if you start a new government based on human rights, everything else will flow from that.”
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Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, 555 Vine Ave., Suite 107, Highland Park. 60035. Phone 708-433-0144.
