ABSTRACT
Soviet Jewry is formed by almost 150 years of Tsarism and 75 years of Communism. The Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidjan never amounted to much, so the Jews belonged to that apatride group within the Soviet Union. Many things one finds in newspapers like Den would land the authors and the editors in jail in any European country outside the former Soviet Union and Romania. From the Union leadership downwards people find a characteristic common to the first and last President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and his arch-rival Boris Yeltsin, who became Russian Parliamentary Speaker in 1990 and President of Russia in 1991. As regards the international Jewish bodies, Gorbachev's attitude became much friendlier, especially during the strange interlude between the August putsch and the dissolution of the USSR, but by that time his influence on the situation in the country was already fairly marginal.
