Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

U.S. Settlerism & Zionism
The connection between Euro-Amerikan set- in their identification with Israel. 'There was a sense of coltlerism
and Zionist settlerism - twin servants of im- ossal national rehabilitation, ' recalled Naum Meiman, a
perialism - is shown in all the recent reactionary political 72-year old physicist and human rights activist. "(20)
developments within the U.S. Jewish communities.
Repeated propaganda about the Holocaust is used as We see the same pattern - how the conquering
fascistic indoctrination, to whip up a belligerent sentimen- and killing of Arabs, Afrikans, etc. is felt by Zionist settality
that both justifies Euro-Amerikans as victims ("no tlers as therapeutic "rehabilitation," restoring them to
more guilt trips about racism") and powers new terroristic European dimensions. This is the same virile restoration
attacks on colonial peoples. The same ultra-Orthodox through mass murder that was so ecstatically praised by
Zionist elements are killing Afrikan youth in Brooklyn and Adolf Hitler.
shooting Palestinian youth on the West Bank. Now even
the anti-Semitic bigots of the Moral Majority recognize the Jews do face an entrenched anti-semitism, which
Zionists as their "kith and kin."
in Russia definitely makes them "second-class citizens,"
restricts advancement into upper management, and limits
This Zionist example has stirred many of the religious and cultural expression (such as the "human
Russian Jewry, and brought some 175,000 of them here to rights" get-together described). About 30% of the Russian
become settlers in the "New World." Again we can see Jewish immigrants here are university graduates. One such
how the division of the world into oppressed nations per- family are the Resnikovs, interviewed in Forest Hills,
vades all relations and events. The Russian Jewish im- N.Y.: "'Russia was a beautiful country. But not for us,'
migration is not like the Puerto Rican immigration, for ex- said Mrs. Resnikov, a brief sorrow in her huge dark eyes.
ample, which is the forced dislocation of a colonial people She was a technician in an electronics plant and her husin
search of employment. In contrast, the Russian Jewry band, a squarely built man of 42, was a construction
come as more reinforcements for the U.S. oppressor na- engineer. 'Higher I couldn't go in Russia - a Jew for them
tion; come not for survival or bread, but for the rich, is an enemy,' he said ... Now, after four years here, Mr.
privileged lifestyle of settlerism. Beneath the propaganda, Resnikov is impatient with 'working like a worker' in his
this is all very evident. A recent New York Times report $6.50-an-hour job as a roofer but has found nothing betfrom
Russia's Jewish "human rights" underground is ter.. .'We live nice, ' he said, 'but we didn 't live bad in Kiev
revealing:
or Haifa. I would like to have my own American
"About 30 Moscow Jews and a few Westerners business.. ."(21)
gathered in a private apartment recently to mark Purim
with poetry and amateur theatricals. The players shifted Some two-thirds of all Russian Jewish emigrants
easily from Russian to Hebrew, and some members of the have come to the U-S. rather than Israel. A survey for the
hopelessly cramped audience joined in the songs. Even the council of Jewish Federations found that in 1981 the mechildren
readily recognized Queen Esther and the other dian family income of these new settlers was $19,632; other
characters in the ancient legend of how Persian Jews surveys have found that less than I%, mostly the elderly,
triumphed over a devious plot to massacre them by the have to stay on welfare.(22) Coming from thousands of
wicked Haman, done up for the evening as a Palestinian miles away, often speaking no English, their new citizenguerrilla..
. The Six-Day War of 1967 is generally recogniz- ship in the U.S. oppressor nation gives them an instant
ed as a turning point in the self-esteem of Russian Jews and lifestyle above the colonial world.
>r Sverellin, nudging a
re ribs and pointing.
'ord is Russian for "lit-
Mr. Sverellin, one of a
rants having a guided
:lub in Manhattan, was
at Bunny Robin and
a real zaichik when he
banquette in the Play-
% a Caesar salad while
tourists for the show to
we us grass to eat bee
zaichicks, bunnies."
r the Russians, most of
;h and who live in the
Brooklyn or in Forest
sample something that
Ily American but previht
pHwight
h
f 7 -, .U~I- 01 Grand
rom the Playboy Club,
- -A-m-ehnnning for 155
A Playboy Bunny escorting the party of Russian hnmipn~ at the dub.