Homeward Bound : Operation Exodus Lends Support to Soviet Jews in Their Return to Israel

Israeli businessman Mendel Kaplan reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a sheaf of papers written in Hebrew and English. In mundane words and numbers, the documents detail housing construction for Soviet Jews emigrating to Israel in a modern exodus that sometimes sets the world on edge.

Casting aside geopolitics for a moment, Kaplan--also head of the private agency responsible for transporting and resettling the emigrants--flips through the pages and delivers a litany on the perils of putting up apartments in his country.

Stabbing a finger at one project, he says: “I’m going to take photographs of (the contractor’s) progress.” Then he adds, “I’ve been in business in Israel for 20 years, and I’m happier when I’m checking up on the exact progress of every aspect of my activities. I’m putting it gently.”

Kaplan, a steel and wire manufacturer who doubles as chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, is in Los Angeles on a private trip. But he concedes it is almost impossible to extract himself completely from the complex operation behind “another great moment in Jewish history, the ingathering of the last reservoir of Jews left in the world.”

In his Jewish Agency role, the bluff, no-nonsense Kaplan is at the focal point of a worldwide campaign to raise $600 million over the next three years to pay for the unprecedented and controversial flood of Jews leaving the Soviet Union for Israel. Jewish communities in the United States are expected to raise more than two-thirds of this amount, some $420 million. In Los Angeles, the goal is $36 million.

Since the Soviet Union liberalized emigration policies in the spring of 1989, some 51,700 Soviet Jews have arrived in Israel. Estimates of how many of the Soviet Union’s 1.5 to 2 million Jews ultimately will leave have varied widely, ranging up to 1 million. Kaplan scoffs at these higher estimates and asserts that playing with potential immigration numbers is dangerous.

“The more numbers (of Soviet Jews emigrating to Israel) you put in the newspaper, the more pressure the Arabs put on the Russians,” he maintains, touching on one aspect of the political volatility of this issue, which mixes Soviet internal affairs and Big Power relations with the already fiery stew of Middle Eastern conflict.

For example, during his recent summit meeting with President Bush, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said his government would reconsider its emigration policy unless Israel guaranteed Soviet Jews would not be resettled on the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Days later, the Soviets backed away from this position, telling U.S. officials they are “committed” to liberalized emigration.

Based on the number of Soviet Jewish families who have requested resettlement in Israel, Kaplan estimates that 600,000 to 700,000 currently are eligible to come to Israel. In Los Angeles, officials orchestrating the local fund-raising drive acknowledge the influx of Soviet Jews involves explosive issues, such as where they settle in Israel and the long-running uprising of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, taken by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.

But they say such issues are secondary to their main concern: helping as many Jews as possible to leave the Soviet Union as soon as possible. Citing worries about the Soviet Union’s internal stability and a rise in anti-Semitism, they say fund-raising efforts for Operation Exodus have so far encountered little resistance.

Acknowledging that there is “definitely some concern” about settlement of Soviet Jews on the West Bank, the Los Angeles Jewish community--ranging from the “very orthodox” to the politically liberal--has given broad support to the drive, said Richard Gunther, co-chairman of the local effort. Since its start-up last month, the campaign has raised $12 million in cash and pledges, he says.

How many emigrants have settled in the occupied territories is a matter of dispute that hinges partly on what the Israelis and their Arab opponents consider occupied territory. Before the new conservative coalition was formed on Friday, the caretaker government said that that 318 Soviet emigrants had moved to the West Bank. However, based on its own survey, the Associated Press reported that nearly 4,000 Jews also had moved to five suburbs of Arab east Jerusalem. Israel maintains that although it took that part of the city from Jordan during the 1967 war, it annexed the area and does not consider it occupied territory.

Moreover, Kaplan asserts that “every single housing unit that has been approved by the cabinet or ministry of housing for Jerusalem is inside the area controlled by Israel before 1967.”

Despite the contentious potential, the Los Angeles fund drive began quickly. The need for cash was so pressing, officials say, that the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles borrowed $4.6 million to assist immigrants already in Israel. The federation is the umbrella group directing the fund drive.

“(Operation Exodus is) above and beyond our campaign for regular purposes, which will raise $52 million this year, and we had to open this drive immediately,” says Wayne L. Feinstein, federation executive vice president. He notes that 70% of American Jews are of Russian and East European origin, and that they feel an affinity for their contemporaries in the Soviet Union.

“If my grandfather hadn’t bought a steamship ticket out of Hamburg in the teens, I could very well be waiting for exit permission,” he explains.

Loren Basch, director of the Operation Exodus campaign, said the drive will attempt to tap donors who do not typically contribute to other Jewish campaigns, reaching a total of perhaps 70,000 to 80,000 contributors.

Kaplan admits there has been a hurry-up nature to the resettlement program because the influx from the Soviet Union has been much greater than expected. In February, the Jewish Agency estimated that 70,000 Jews would come to Israel this year, and that number had been bumped up from 33,000 last fall. Now the agency is planning for 150,000 Jews to arrive in 1990.

The agency pays all transportation costs--about $1,000 per person--plus all the new immigrants’ expenses for their first six months in Israel, Kaplan says. Currently, there are 20,000 empty housing units in Israel where Soviet immigrants might settle. A building program for 55,000 units will begin to provide additional housing in about a year, he says.

He disputes reports that there has been “no progress” in providing housing, saying, “there is real progress on the ground. . . .” Contractors receive bonuses if they finish work on time or ahead of schedule.

Kaplan is a native of South Africa and maintains ties with that country’s Jewish community. Although he supports an end to apartheid, Kaplan says he draws no direct parallels with Soviet Jewish emigration and the freedom drives of black South Africans.

Black South Africans are already in their homeland, he says, whereas Soviet Jewish emigration to Israel is another act in the age-old Jewish search for a homeland.