Freed Refuseniks Still Skeptical That Soviet Policies Have Changed

When a Soviet emigration official told Jewish refusenik Binyamin Bogomolny and his cancer-stricken wife, Tatyana, last October that they were free to leave, they were skeptical. After all, it had been 20 years since Binyamin had first applied for an exit visa.

“I said, ‘How do I believe you?’ ” Tatyana recalled Friday in an interview before the couple’s first public appearance in the Southland at Temple Beth El in Laguna Niguel. “We saw a big package of telegrams on the table. He said, ‘Tell everyone you’ve got the permission and please tell them to stop the telegrams,’ ” she said.

The Bogomolnys are well-known refuseniks--Jews whose applications to leave the Soviet Union are denied. Binyamin, 41, a physical therapist and medical student, was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the “most patient refusenik” for having waited the longest time for an exit visa.

Living in San Francisco

Tatyana, 47, an English teacher and translator, received worldwide attention as the first of a six-member refusenik cancer support group allowed to leave the Soviet Union.

Now living with Tatyana’s father and sister in San Francisco, the Bogomolnys do not attribute their release to glasnost or any newly liberalized Soviet politics, which some believe may have inspired this year’s wave of freed religious and political dissenters. Rather, they credited a new Soviet sensitivity to Western public opinion. In their case, it took the form of thousands of protests--including a dramatic press conference last June--from public officials, private citizens and doctors in the United States and other Western countries.

“They want to show to the West a good face,” Binyamin said. “They don’t care about real values you have in America . . . that people should be free to leave the country to join their relatives.”

“Nothing drastic has changed,” Tatyana said. “One family is nothing. So many families are still there waiting. . . . We would believe it if a trickle of emigrants would become an avalanche.”

The National Conference on Soviet Jewry has identified 11,000 refuseniks among an estimated population of 2.5 million Soviet Jews. “In addition, we know of 380,000 invitations sent from Israel over the past 15 years that have accumulated,” said Jerry Goodman, executive director of the New York-based organization. The Bogomolnys estimated that 400,000 would leave if emigration restrictions, which require invitations from nuclear families living abroad, were lifted.

Binyamin first applied for a visa in 1966 to join his parents and siblings, who had already emigrated to Israel. He was denied for “security” reasons because he had just finished military service, he said. Like other refuseniks, he said he was discouraged from high-level schooling or employment because of the stigma.

He became an activist, publishing a booklet on separated refusenik families in 1975. As a result, he said, the KGB sent “hooligans” to destroy his Moscow home and beat him. After foreign correspondents published accounts of the incident, he began making contacts with Western human rights activists, he said.

He also held semi-secret meetings with other Jews to teach them Jewish culture, since the Soviets discourage Jewish schools and newspapers, he said. “In Russia, the Jewish kids don’t know they’re Jews,” he said. In the Soviet Union, “Jewish” is considered a nationality such as Ukranian or Georgian, he said.

With two professional actors now in Los Angeles, he staged a play called “The Refusenik.” By hiding his status as a refusenik, he was able to enroll in medical school.

The couple married eight years ago. They have no children.

When they learned that Tatyana had breast cancer, the couple decided to try to emigrate to the United States. “It was a problem,” Tatyana said. “Benji would have liked to go to Israel. At the time I needed moral support more than he. Also, he wanted to continue his medical studies, and America was better than Israel.”

“Brezhnev used to give cancer patients permission to leave, but in 1979 they stopped it,” Binyamin said. Tatyana’s visa was denied and she lost her job for having applied, she said. She did receive permission to leave in March. But because her husband was still turned down without explanation, she said, she told them, “Go to hell.”

‘Very Rude to People’

“We were crazy,” she said. “We were very rude to people.”

Binyamin said he took a copy of the Guiness Book of World Records, shoved it at the Soviet chief of emigration and said, “You are responsible. This is the face of your country.”

Later, Tatyana said she told another official, “You had a chance to save face; now you’ll see what we’ll do.”

Realizing the emotional impact that the image of refusenik cancer victims would have worldwide, she said, she then formed the cancer support group. She had had a mastectomy and was finishing chemotherapy treatment. But the best therapy would be reuniting with their families, she said. “The group would be more powerful than individuals,” she said. “And I was right.”

They were visited by Western officials, including San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein. They were interviewed by the Western media. Last spring, Rabbi Allen Krause of Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation, traveled to Moscow, telling them that a press conference would be held on their behalf to publicize their plight. At that press conference in Washington, senators from each state in which one of the cancer group members had a U.S. relative would telephone the Bogomolnys. The recorded call was rebroadcast three times a week over Voice of America, Binyamin said.

Though they have no direct evidence, they believe their release was linked to that of U.S. journalist Nicholas Daniloff; both releases occurred on the same day.

Three others from the group also were released, Tatyana said. One woman, Inna Meiman, an English teacher who had an inoperable neck tumor, died in Washington this month. Tatyana’s cancer is stable, she said.

‘Some Kind of Euphoria’

After 100 days in the United States, Binyamin said he is still “in some kind of euphoria.” For Tatyana, the reality matches the expectations of such conveniences as large supermarkets. Both are impressed by the “have-a-nice-day” California approach to life and want to make a docu-drama for television.

“But partly we cannot enjoy completely the life of freedom here because of the past,” Tatyana said. “Your thoughts go all the time back home to those friends.”

They still have no jobs. Binyamin, at 41, must begin his career.

Today, they will speak before an assembly of students at 10:30 a.m. at Temple B’nai Tzedek, 9669 Talbert Ave. in Fountain Valley. The audience will include youngsters who have participated in a proxy bar or bat mitzvah program for Soviet youngsters unable to celebrate the traditional coming of age ceremony due to Soviet restrictions.

On Thursday they will participate in rallies protesting the plight of Soviet Jews sponsored by B’nai B’rith and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry that will be held across the nation and in 43 countries.

In Orange County, a rally will take place at noon outside the Orange County Hall of Administration, 10 Civic Center Plaza in Santa Ana. In addition to speeches and proclamations, a list of names of refuseniks will be read.

“You write letters for these people and never see them,” said Adelyne Minsky of Laguna Beach, who came to hear the Bogomolnys at Temple Beth El. “When you see the people, it really gets you.”

“It’s true, there’s not much you can do with the Soviet Union,” said Gregory Trachtenberg of South Laguna, a member of the congregation whose emigration eight years ago went smoothly. But, he said, “I’ve never heard before of a leader like Gorbachev. I believe in it ( glasnost ). I want it to be true.”

David Sandberg, minister of the Shepherd of the Hills Church, which shares its facilities with Temple Beth El, concluded the Friday service with a prayer. “Many of us have waited all our lives to see a miracle,” he said. “Now we see Benji and Tanya.”