Why Moscow Must Raise Its Voice

President Bush is said to have been surprised to hear from American Jewish leaders this week that anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise in the Soviet Union and, to a much lesser extent, in parts of Eastern Europe. If so, he hasn’t been reading the newspapers, or his intelligence reports.

The weakening of central authority in the European Communist world is allowing long suppressed feelings to be voiced. Some, like demands for free institutions and democratic government, are healthy and benign. Others, like overt expressions of hatred and hostility toward Jews, are ugly and menacing.

It’s an old story whose tragic dimensions define a bleak chapter in human history, and it is precisely because of what has gone before that what is starting to happen now must be regarded with such concern. In the Soviet Union, ultra-nationalist groups are boldly asserting their bigoted agendas and threatening imminent pogroms. In the 19th-Century, pogroms--from the Russian word for devastation or destruction--were encouraged by czarist authorities to distract attention from the regime’s failures. Usually, very little encouragement was needed to ignite outbreaks of murder, rape and arson.

Have things changed all that much? It’s hard to gauge the extent of popular support for the open return of unofficial anti-Semitism. What’s clear so far is that there has been precious little public or governmental condemnation of it.

A liberalized immigration policy is allowing tens of thousands of Soviet Jews to depart, with most bound for Israel and the United States. But tens of thousands of others who want to leave are destined to spend years waiting for visas, while hundreds of thousands more might have no choice but to try to join them in line if anti-Jewish activism grows. Bush says that the United States stands ready to help in an emergency. Good. But the immediate emphasis ought to be on prevention, which could forestall any need for urgent evacuation. Political turmoil in the Soviet Union has affected public order, but there’s no reason to think the regime can’t stop organized thuggery if it chooses.

So far, the government has said little about recent anti-Semitic outbursts. Clearly some will interpret that silence to signify approval.