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Anti-Semitism in Soviet science In the summer of 1978, Grigori Freiman, a 52-year-old professor of mathematics at the University of Kalinin, near Moscow, published a 20,000-word article under his own name in the Moscow journal Jews in the U.S.S.R. (This journal, like other samizdat or underground Soviet publications, is typewritten in many carbon copies and circulated by hand.) Attacking a systematic pattern of discrimination against Jews in Soviet mathematics, Freiman leveled specific accusations and named those he considered responsible. Freiman was comfortably situated by Soviet standards, was a Communist Party member, and was not involved in dissident activities or in trying to emigrate. The article, entitled "It Seems I Am a Jew," circulated widely in the U.S.S.R. and was smuggled to the West. It now has been published by Southern Illinois University Press in cooperation with the Committee of Concerned Scientists. And it appears to be more than a coincidence that Freiman was dismissed this summer from his university post and has applied for a visa to emigrate to Israel, feeling that he has no future in the U.S.S.R. Vladmir Ilyich Lenin, whose contempt for anti-Semitism was boundless and who once told Maxim Gorki that "an intelligent Russian is almost always a Jew," would have been stunned by the disclosures of this poignant essay. The racist bigotry that Lenin's successors have wrought is given a pointed, revealing, and detailed exposure in the field of mathematics, usually considered one of the Soviets' top scientific fields. It is a case study of a much bigger and more threatening anti-Semitism that embraces Soviet society as a whole, in spite of Kremlin claims that it is strictly forbidden and does not exist. Freiman has written a partly picaresque, partly Kafkaesque work of his personal descent into the mad— but real—Soviet academic world of prejudice and hate. The beginning relates his travail in hurdling endless obstacles, despite a superior academic record, to enter graduate school. He learned how anti-Semitism could take on such forms of insidious subtlety that to cope with it became almost impossible. 64
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Essay, first circulated underground in U.S.S./?., describes systematic pattern of discrimination in Soviet mathematics "It Seems I Am a Jew: A Samizdat Essay on Soviet Mathematics" by Grigori Freiman, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, 111., 1980, 97 pages plus xvi, $9.95 Reviewed by William Korey, director of International Policy Research at the Jewish service organization, B'nai B'rith, who has taught Russian history at Columbia University, City College of New York, and Yeshiva University, and has written a book and journal articles on the situation of Soviet Jews
Even winning admission and going on to achieve academic status were but temporary achievements. A netherworld, recalling Kafka's "Castle," offers innumerable traps and uncertainties: Dissertations written by Jews are routinely rejected, often unread; visas for travel to foreign conferences are denied; and research papers submitted for publication are refused. The heart of the work is Freiman's tormenting and hopeless effort to prevail upon the mathematics community to approve a brilliant dissertation by a Jewish student of his. The end is the awareness that the mathematics establishment is run by antiSemites—in particular, Ivan M. Vinogradov, who directs the Soviet Academy of Sciences' Steklov Institute, and Lev S. Pontryagin, who administers the mathematics publishing field. Freiman discloses how they and their cohorts manipulate the profession to make it "Judenfrei" ("free of Jews," the term once used by the Nazis). The phenomenon exposed by Freiman is by no means linked only to
Soviet mathematics, although much more is known about the situation in this field than in other scientific areas. Pervasive discrimination against Jews in a variety of fields— party and state leadership, diplomacy, foreign trade, military officialdom—emerged in the 1940's and became clearly pronounced by the early 1950's. Quotas in university admissions also were introduced in the 1940's (as Freiman's personal experience illuminates). However, until the past dozen years, this discrimination did not seriously affect the extraordinary role played by Jews in the Soviet scientific-technological world. For example, the 1970 census showed that although Jews constituted less than 1% of the total population, they numbered almost 6% of the scientific community. In the key scientific establishment of Moscow, where one quarter of the nation's technological elite worked, 11% were Jews. At the highest educational level, 14% of all holders of the Doctor of Science degree in 1974 were Jews. At the next higher level of the Candidate of Science degree (approximately equivalent to our Ph.D. degree), 9% were Jews. However, beginning in 1968, entrance into the scientific-technological elite began to be sharply circumscribed for Jews. At that time, Andrei Sakharov noticed that the Soviet Academy of Sciences was applying anti-Semitic criteria in its "appointments policy." Admission of Jews to Soviet universities started plummeting. Total Jewish undergraduate enrollments declined 40% in eight years—from 111,900 in the academic year 1968-69 to 66,900 in 1976-77. On the postgraduate level, the plunge was even more pronounced—well over 40% between 1970 and 1975. Data for more recent years are not yet available, but the trend is clear and profoundly disturbing. Freiman describes several of the inner devices for reducing Jewish university admissions: Jews are deliberately bracketed into a distinctive group, subjected to special handling by selected examiners, assigned particularly difficult questions, or given unusually hard oral examinations.
The results are apparent at the flagship universities of Moscow and Novosibirsk, where no more than a handful of Jews is now admitted. An appendix to the book, written by Soviet mathematicians who have emigrated, throws further light on the techniques used. Another appendix gives examples of the difficult "Jewish problems" used in oral mathematics exams at Moscow State University. Career opportunities inevitably diminish. The number of Jews annually entering scientific fields has dropped in recent years from 2500 to 1000. If the percentage of Jews in the technological elite still remains fairly high, it is because many are holdovers from a previous era. Their average age, however, is at least a decade higher than the average age of Soviet scientists in general. Moreover, a secret Communist Party directive in 1970 to closed and security institutions makes it clear that Jews are not to be appointed to "responsible levels." Such institutions, as Soviet dissident historian Roy Medvedev has shown, remove or exclude even those who are listed as "Russian" in their internal passports and other identity papers, but whose mothers or fathers are Jewish. Not unusual is the recent case of Valery Soifer, a prominent geneticist registered as a Russian, who was removed as scientific director of the Institute of Applied Molecular Biology when authorities learned that his father was Jewish (his mother was Russian). What the ultimate consequences of these developments can be is presented by Freiman. He quotes the organizers of a major Soviet mathematical conference as proudly declaring: "For the first time—Judenfrei!" It was the Nazi formulation in a Communist setting. The discrimination Freiman depicts is reinforced by a propaganda campaign in Soviet media with themes that echo the hoary Czarist forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (which purported to detail an international Jewish conspiracy for world domination). Even the prestigious Soviet Academy of Sciences has recently published volumes replete with anti-Semitic stereotypes. Inevitably, the focus of the issue today must be on the right to emigrate of the Freimans, the Soifers, and the myriad of other victims of discrimination. This remains a critical item on the agenda of the international scientific community's conscience. • Academic Turmoil: The Reality and Promise of Open Education. Theodore L. Gross. 250 pages. Anchor Press, 245 Park Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.1980. $10.95.
Advances in Drying Vol. 1. Arun S. Mujumdar, editor, xi + 301 pages. Hemisphere Publishing Corp., 1025 Vermont Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.1980. $55. Aerosols: Anthropogenic and Natural Sources and Transport. Theo. J. Kneip, Paul J. Lioy, editors, ix + 618 pages. New York Academy of Sciences, 2 East 63rd St., New York, N.Y. 10021.1980. $108. Alternative Fuels: Chemical Energy Resources. E. M. Goodger. xvii + 238 pages. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.1980. $43.95.
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Data Handling for Science and Technology. Stephen A. Rossmassler, David G. Watson, editors, xvi + 184 pages. North-Holland Publishing Co., 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.1980. $25.
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Dictionary of Petroleum Technology, Eng l i s h / F r e n c h - F r e n c h / E n g l i s h . 2nd Ed. Magdeleine Moureau, Gerald Brace, xv + 946 pages. Editions Technip, 27 Rue Ginoux, 75737 Paris, France. 1979. 375FF.
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Electrodes of Conductive Metallic Oxides. Part A. Sergio Trasatti, editor, xv + 366 pages. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.1980. $83. Electronic Communication: Technology and Impacts. Madeline M. Henderson, Marcia J. MacNaughton, editors. Westview Press, 5500 Central Ave., Boulder, Colo. 80301. 1980. $18.50. Energy and Resource Development of Continental Margins. Teh Fu Yen, Don Walsh, editors, χ + 238 pages. Pergamon Press, Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford, N.Y. 10523.1980. $30. Energy Management for Industrial Fur naces. Carroll Cone, xiii + 201 pages. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.1980. $28. Environmental Issues in Chemical Per spective. Thomas G. Spiro, William M. Stigliani. xi + 374 pages. State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y. 12246.1980. $21. Handbook of Environmental Engineering. Vol. 1, Air and Noise Pollution Control. Law rence K. Wang, Norman C. Pereira, editors, xviii + 484 pages. Humana Press Inc., P.O. Box 2148, Clifton, N.Y. 07015.1979. $49.50. Handbook of Refractory Compounds. S. V. Samsonov, I. M. Vinitskii. xii + 555 pages. Plenum Press, 227 West 17th St., New York, N.Y. 10011. 1980. $75. Horizons of Quantum Chemistry. Proceed ings of 3rd International Congress of Quantum Chemistry, Kyoto, Japan, 1979. Kenichi Fukui, Bernard Pullman, editors, xviii + 292 pages. Kluwer Boston Inc., 160 Old Derby St., Hingham, Mass. 02043.1980. $39.50. Inorganic Syntheses. Vol. XX. D. H. Busch, editor, xx + 303 pages. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1980. $29.95. Ions in Polymers. Advances in Chemistry Series 187. Adi Eisenberg, editor, viii + 376 pages. American Chemical Society, 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. 1980. $43.50. Lanthanide and Actinide Chemistry and Spectroscopy. ACS Symposium Series 131. Norman M. Edelstein, editor, vii + 472 pages. American Chemical Society, 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. 1980. $40. Laser Probes for Combustion Chemistry. ACS Symposium Series 134. David R. Crosley, editor, xii + 495 pages. American Chemical Society, 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.1980. $44.50. Liquid-Liquid Equilibrium and Extraction. Part A. Jaime Wisniak, Abraham Tamir. xxii + 1252 pages. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., P.O. Box 211, Amsterdam, the Nether lands. 1980. $183. Polymer Colloids II. Robert M. Fitch, editor, xi + 684 pages. Plenum Press, 227 West 17th St., New York, N.Y. 10011.1980. $69.50.
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