By  Keren Leizerovitz

 MELBOURNE - Labelled ‘the lost tribe’, Russian-Jews or Jewish-Russians depending on where you sit, the Jewish community from the former Soviet Union in Melbourne has often been misunderstood or not sufficiently acknowledged.

Since their arrival in Melbourne, the Russian Jewish community has existed in a paradoxical world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the treacle of Russian immigrants in Melbourne quickly turned into a wave as many Jews leapt at the chance to leave the USSR to pursue a better life abroad.

Unlike previous migrations of Jews following World War II, the Soviet Jewish immigration to Australia broke traditional stereotypes being largely middle-class, educated and highly skilled.
 
Despite memories of rampant anti-Semitism and persecution being fresh in their minds, Russian Jews are still in many ways tied to the culture of their birthplace,  often continuing to celebrate Russian language, poetry and art. Having lived in a violently secularist society for so long, many members of the Russian-Jewish community also have a conflicted relationship with their Jewish faith.
 
This paradox has not been unnoticed, with one Australian Jewish News article describing Russian Jewry as a ‘lost tribe’, a unique and misunderstood migrant community which has its feet in two worlds but is not truly embraced by either.

While the Russian Jewish community does indeed face a unique predicament, a range of grassroots initiatives have helped to break down existing cultural barriers. One such initiative is Channel 31 show ‘Sputnik’. Named after the first satellite to enter space in 1957-a Russian world first- this television program has acted as a vehicle for the Russian-Jewish community to share its unique culture with the public.

Gregory Vaisman, president of Sputnik Television, migrated from Russia in 1991 and has been a producer for the television program for 13 years.  Vaisman acknowledges that his community has sometimes existed in a grey area. ‘You look at me and call me Russian, but (to Russians) I am a Jew’ he says.

When asked about claims of conflict between the Russian-Jewish community and the broader Jewish community Vaisman remains philosophical.  ‘Every wave of migrants, when they arrive there are people who arrive earlier who are already the bosses…this wave of immigration was highly skilled and educated, they didn’t want to do the same jobs (but) the first immigration wanted them to eat the same as they ate…that is the conflict’.

Vaisman believes that because of their experience living under a dictatorship, Jews from the former Soviet Union have found it especially challenging to adapt to the relaxed nature of Australian life. He comments that ‘(We were) always in confrontation…always thinking how (the government) will punish us for anything or everything.’

Through his work at Sputnik, Vaisman has tried to portray the Russian-Jewish community just as he knows it, talented, creative and articulate. He emphasizes the fact that the Sputnik program has managed to appeal not only to Russian Jews but to people from all walks of life, Russian speaking or not.

Another initiative which has encouraged greater understanding of the Russian-Jewish community has been the 4th and 5th instalments of the ‘Memory Guide my Hand’ anthology, a collection of testimonies gathered from Jews from the former Soviet Union who now live in Melbourne. Editor of the anthology, Julie Meadows, felt that the picture of Melbourne Jewry could not be complete without the stories of Soviet Jews who have witnessed some of the most cataclysmic events of the twentieth century.

Nelly Khoroshina, project coordinator at the National Council of Jewish Women and a migrant from Belorussia, was asked to act as a liaison for the book and leapt at the opportunity to portray what she saw as a misunderstood community in a positive light.

‘I felt that the Russian Jewish community (was) not understood properly. Time and again I was upset for different reasons’ she says.

According to Khoroshina, when an increasing number of Jews from the former Soviet Union arrived in Australia the local Jewish community did not fully understand how to harness this skilled and valuable migration. ‘I think this moment (the) local Jewish community missed it, they didn’t get that this was very different to the previous migrations.’

For Khoroshina, the barriers which have existed between Russian Jews and the Jewish community at large are a result of ignorance, something she has actively sought to fight through working on the ‘Memory Guide my Hand’ series. It appears that this goal has been achieved by the anthology, which has been greeted with enthusiasm within the Jewish and broader literary community and was invited to the 2007 Melbourne Writer’s Festival.

While both Nellie Khoroshina and Gregory Vaisman acknowledge that the Russian Jewish community in Melbourne has faced unique challenges since its arrival, it appears that both are in agreement that the situation has improved markedly through a mixture of both time and hard work.

As Nelly Khoroshina puts it, ‘it’s a good challenge, quite an exciting challenge to assimilate here.’ Indeed, despite the difficulties associated with migrating and adapting to a completely different way of life, this so called ‘lost tribe’ has not only added a wealth of talent and creativity to Melbourne Jewish life, but found its feet in the process.

Cover art for ‘Memory Guide my Hand Volume 5’, titled ‘New Australians’ by Robert Shlimak, a contributor to the book and a member of the Russian-Jewish community in Melbourne.

 Gregory Vaisman, Russian migrant and president of 'Sputnik' Television