Fearful Moscow Officials Peril Jewish Film Festival

Only days before it is due to open, the largest Jewish cultural event in Soviet history, an international Jewish film festival, has been placed in jeopardy by the refusal of Moscow city officials to rent it three movie theaters, apparently out of fear of protests by ultra-right Russian nationalists.

“We came here to celebrate the renaissance of Jewish culture and the rebirth of Jewish community life under perestroika, and we are winding up a victim of anti-Semitism,” Deborah Kaufman, the American director of the Jewish Film Festival, said Tuesday.

“With these films, we had expected to focus on many themes around the idea of what it means to be Jewish. . . . But the idea that has come across, so strongly and so painfully, is that to be Jewish in the Soviet Union, even as things improve, is to experience spirit-crushing anti-Semitism.”

Amid many explanations about how the festival would have been unprofitable or might have done better if held in June or July, Moscow city officials acknowledged their fears that the festival would provoke protests by groups known as much for their anti-Semitism as their Russian nationalism.

“The timing was poor, and there was a question of safety,” said Eleanora V. Levitskaya, who supervises the cinema industry in the Soviet capital for the Moscow city council. “Political passions have been running high because of the elections here this month, and Pamyat and similar organizations were particularly active. We also had a Tel Aviv drama theater performing this month, and we asked, ‘Why pile up so many Jewish functions?’ ”

Pamyat, which was founded to promote a resurgence of Russian culture, has focused its attention in the past two years on Jews, blaming them for the country’s ills. That attention has recently become virtually a public campaign, including public demonstrations and speeches threatening violence, against supposed Jewish influence within the Soviet government and among the intelligentsia.

Alexander S. Shmukler, a member of the leadership of the newly formed Confederation of Jewish Organizations and Religious Communities of the Soviet Union, commented bluntly: “It is not that they are afraid of Pamyat at the Moscow city council, although they probably are, but that they sympathize with it.

“The Moscow city council is notoriously reactionary and anti-Semitic,” Shmukler asserted. “We have had a lot of experience with it, and it simply does not want to give any encouragement, none whatsoever, to Jewish culture. On this, they and Pamyat are in agreement. We have hopes for the new city council, but this decision was made before the elections.”

The American-Soviet Film Initiative, one of the festival’s sponsors, is still searching for small theaters, clubs and halls in which to screen the 29 foreign films. It is also appealing to the Communist Party and the central government to reverse the city government’s decision.

“We are planning to go ahead on Saturday as scheduled, but I cannot tell you how or where,” said Mark Gecht, general director of the sponsoring group. “It is a question of permission. . . . We had permission, now we don’t have it and we are trying to get it back.”

But Kaufman said there is little hope now of drawing the thousands of people, mostly Jewish, who had been expected to throng the three centrally located movie houses daily for eight days, to view the films and then participate in the conferences and seminars that would have followed.

“To me, this looks like official anti-Semitism,” he said. “That is speculation because nobody has told me outright, ‘We don’t want you Jews to do this.’ But that appears to be the intent.”

Vladimir V. Ploshansky, general director of the Moscow city agency that runs the movie theaters, said he had decided early this month not to rent the three large theaters requested for the festival. He said the American-Soviet Film Initiative wants 75% of the proceeds and that in his opinion, the city, the theaters and his organization should get 80%.

“Our reasons were purely commercial, but it was not we who made the final decision,” Ploshansky added. “We did suggest that June or July would be a better time for such a Jewish festival because we will have other international films then. That would be better for everyone.”

Soviet sources said that Moscow Mayor Valery T. Saikin had personally vetoed the festival, expressing concern about the possibility of violence. Saikin could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but neither Levitskaya nor Ploshansky would deny the report.

Rumors have repeatedly swept the Jewish communities in Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa and other cities that Pamyat plans to launch pogroms against Jews in May. Soviet authorities have warned that anti-Semitism, let alone violence, will not be tolerated, but the rumors continue.

And Jews are openly worried because of the government’s slowness in protecting Armenians against ethnic attacks on them in Azerbaijan in January.

During the founding congress of the Jewish Confederation in December, Pamyat members demonstrated twice--unhindered by the police--outside the meeting, shouting, “Jews, go home!” and “Out with Zionists!”

The embattled festival has drawn strong support from the U.S. Embassy here.

“We are aware of the problems that the festival has encountered, and we are seriously concerned about them,” Philip C. Brown, the embassy’s cultural affairs counselor, said. “A postponement, let alone a cancellation, would be a breach of faith and would be open to very critical interpretations in the United States.”

An offshoot of the nine-year-old San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the Moscow festival was intended to show Soviet Jews, who despite rising emigration still number about 2 million, “the diverse expression of who we are, of our continuing vitality as a people today all over the world,” according to its organizers.