The Motherland Viewed From Afar

An immigrant lives simultaneously in two places: in the world of memory--of first places, friends and causes--and in the world of the engaging present--of the place and people they have chosen.

One of the lessons to be relearned from the new immigrants reshaping this country is that attention to the new Americans’ experience can lend our views of distant events a vital intimacy.

This week in Los Angeles, for example, it was possible to see the historic turmoil in Moscow through the eyes of Americans who also are Balts, Jews, Ukrainians, Armenians and peoples from every corner of the Soviets’ crumbling empire.

Congregation Levi-Yiztchok, one of two Russian-language synagogues operated here by Lubavitcher Hasidim, sits in the middle of a commercial strip on the newly fashionable strip of La Brea Avenue. Its rabbi, Naftoli Estulin, is a youthful and ebullient man who received his training in Jewish law and mysticism in the underground the Lubavitchers maintained inside the Soviet Union during the dark years of religious oppression.

His shul is, in the Hasidic tradition, a cheerful, bustling place in which people and books--which spill from every shelf--take precedence over mundane matters, like order. The principal decorations are pictures of the Lubavitcher movement’s leader, Grand Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, whose followers refer to him simply as, “the Rebbe.”

Despite Monday’s dismal news, that afternoon I found Rabbi Estulin in an upbeat mood. “Our people have been calling all day,” he said. “It’s natural that in a time like this they would call and, of course, they come to the synagogue. Listen, at times like this we all have to pray. We want peace; we don’t want to see bloodshed. Even one life lost is too much. Our people are concerned not only with their own families remaining in the Soviet Union, but also with the whole situation. Like anyone else, they wonder and they worry what will be?

“We did not come here simply to make money. We came here because we want to live in freedom--to be free Jews. For us, freedom does not mean only freedom from religion, but freedom for religion. Freedom from religion we had enough in Russia already.

“But I believe something good will come from this. I believe this first because two years ago the Rebbe said it would be a year of miracles and, this year he said it would be one of miracles and wonders. And we see this all around us. The justice of God is being made real in the world.

“The Russian people themselves have become more open. You can’t put them back in a box now. You can’t push them away from freedom now. . . . I’m confident that these hard-liners, as they call them, cannot change things back to the way they used to be.”

Twenty-four hours later and two miles away, I spoke with Alexander Polovets, the thoughtful and very secular editor and publisher of the influential Russian-language weekly Panorama, which is read by a third of the estimated 180,000 Soviet immigrants who have come to the United States over the past 15 years.

Over tea and sugar cookies, we mused together about the impact of this week’s events on the Soviet emigres here. “You know, until very recently I never felt that I was in two places at the same time. I am an American. Of course, I always remember my roots, but I was here 100%. If I was nostalgic, it was for my friends and, I suppose most of all, for my younger years and the place where I spent them. That is a nostalgia everyone feels, I think.

“Recently, though, so many of my friends have been able to come from the Soviet Union and spend a month or so here with me that even those feelings were fading a little bit. Emotionally, I was just here. Today, of course, part of myself is back there--in Moscow--because those tanks are there. They called me home.

“Now, none of us can look back at that place and feel that it is something that is not ours. Even here, we are part of it. We brought it with us on our shoes.

“I’ve become very involved not only with what is happening now, but also with thoughts about my former country’s future. My feelings have become stronger and stronger. It also is important to me that my feelings and those of other emigres now are shared by other Americans and by the President, as well. As Americans, that means a great deal to us.”

Polovets, a native of Moscow who came to this country 16 years ago, said that one of the unforeseen consequences of this week’s events was that they had let him reflect on the differences between himself and more recent Soviet immigrants. “They are very pragmatic,” he said. “We were idealistic. We were ready to meet any difficulty, so long as we could do it in freedom.

“Those who come these days already enjoy a certain amount of freedom at home. So that is not the primary reason they come here. They come looking for economic opportunities, which also is understandable. However, over the past few years the Soviet system changed people and made them more pragmatic, more materialistic.

“This is the first time in 70 years that the government openly said to people, ‘Guys, go and get rich.’ And people not having the experience for this--not just the working experience, but the spiritual experience--forget all moral limits. They decide to do whatever they can just to make up for lost time.

“It has changed the mentality of the people. Then, they come here and they think that is the law for this country, too--to do whatever you can to get rich without moral limits. But, of course, that is not what we Americans have learned.

“I would not say this is true of everyone coming here now from the Soviet Union, but sadly, it is my impression of many of them. We came here at a different time and for different reasons. So, maybe now I’m nostalgic for that, too.”