SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — As a 10-year-old, Michael Drob did not understand the reasons his family was twice denied refugee status by the U.S. government when attempting to emigrate from Latvia in 1988. He knew only one thing as he waited in limbo with his parents and sister for 10 months in Italy — other families were being granted visas when his was not, and he wanted to know why.
Drob and his loved ones eventually were permitted to relocate to the United States, but that question stayed with him for years afterward. So, after obtaining funding from The Council of Jewish Emigre Community Organizations’ BluePrint Fellowship, he decided to direct a documentary in an attempt to learn why he and thousands of other Soviet Jewish immigrants were denied U.S. entry. The result, “Stateless,” will be screened at Oheb Shalom Congregation in South Orange on Jan. 7 at 7:30 p.m.
And while Drob admitted that he never found a concrete reason as to why his own family was denied entry nearly 30 years ago, he was able to shed light on the immigration process Soviet Jews faced during a period when the United States started enforcing stricter requirements to qualify as a refugee. And that made the experience worthwhile for him.
“The whole process of our so-called transmigration has never been covered in much depth outside of a few books, and I wanted to tell this story as much for those who were uninformed as for those who went through it since we had so little information at the time,” Drob told the News-Record in a Dec. 23 email. “It was rather remarkable that most people who went through this process over 25 years ago still don’t fully remember what each organization did, how they got funded and what kind of influence — or lack of influence — they actually had.”
The director interviewed several Soviet Jewish immigrants about their experiences for his film, including his parents and in-laws. He also talked to key figures from Jewish refugee agencies including the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which supported emigres as they were interviewed by U.S. immigration officials and eventually resettled in the United States. By doing so, Drob said, he was able to gather insight into what happened on both sides of the fence. Above all, he said he was amazed by the similarities between the immigrants’ experiences, to the point that some even offered identical statements in describing their journey.
But as interesting as these conversations were, the process of editing everything together was daunting. Drob, who had no prior documentary filmmaking experience, recalled spending months sorting through 27 hours of interviews in order to find the best parts for his movie. It was overwhelming, he said, especially as he was someone not used to such work.
Still, Drob is glad he was able to capture his own family’s story for his children to see. He said their grandparents, Gennady and Klara Drob, experienced a very trying 10 months between leaving Latvia and waiting for visas in Italy. He said it was a time fraught with confusion as to why they had been rejected and fear that saying one thing wrong in an interview with immigration officials could result in a denial. Yet through it all, the director said he and his sister did not have such a bad experience. And he credits that entirely to the selflessness of his mother and father.
“It’s only now that I am about the age my parents were and am also a parent that I realize that it wasn’t a big deal for us because of the monumental effort by my parents to make the very chaotic situation calm and normal for us,” Drob said.
The Drobs’ experience was much like the journey Yelena Goltsman had when she emigrated from Ukraine in 1989 with her then-husband, two young children and elderly mother. Goltsman, who is featured in “Stateless,” told the News-Record it was very frightening to leave almost everything behind — families were restricted to taking $90 per person and six suitcases — in search of a better life. After all, she pointed out, there was no guarantee the U.S. immigration service would grant them visas. Thus, she said, the six months she spent in Rome waiting for her fate to be decided were filled with worry.
Yet Goltsman said all the uncertainty and discomfort — her family lived with six other people in a one-bedroom apartment while in Italy — was worthwhile just to move to the United States. To be a Jew in Ukraine at that time was to be a “second-class citizen” often overlooked for jobs or prevented from living in desirable places, she explained. The United States was like an entirely new world to her, she said.
“Absolutely nothing can be compared to being free and having the same rights as everybody else,” Goltsman said in a Jan. 2 phone interview. “The overall sense that you’re not singled out is critically important.”
Goltsman said she was happy to share her story for Drob’s documentary because not too many people know what Soviet Jewish immigrants went through in the late 1980s, before the Lautenberg Amendment lowered the burden of proof of prosecution required to obtain refugee status. In fact, she learned during filming that her own children did not recall much of what they had experienced. As a result, she said she hopes “Stateless” can preserve history and teach people about themselves.
“You don’t know yourself until you know your history and the history of your people,” Goltsman said. “I think it is important for everyone to know their history and especially the history that just happened to their parents, that just happened to their grandparents. They just made this major move for you. How did they do that? Where did they get the strength? What did they have to sacrifice?”
Inna Gulberg, chairwoman for the Oheb Shalom screening, believes “Stateless” has the power to teach. Gulberg said the documentary reminded her of her own experiences emigrating to the United States from Belarus as a 12-year-old. But it also taught her a lot about the impact Jewish organizations had in helping Soviet Jews through the immigration process, which she said speaks to how thorough Drob was in his filmmaking.
Yet what Gulberg hopes Jews and non-Jews alike take away from the documentary is an understanding of the struggles refugees face. She said the Oheb Shalom congregation played a pivotal role in helping her own family become settled in the United States, from teaching them English to donating clothes to simply opening their hearts and homes to them. Nearly 30 years later, she said people can still lend a hand.
“Anything that you do, big or small, makes a difference in the immigrants’ lives,” Gulberg told the News-Record in a Dec. 23 phone interview. “Those people are forever grateful to everyone who’s involved in helping them adapt to the new country. Really, if you give that family clothing or teach them English or even offer to take them to the supermarket — it’s all something that they appreciate.”
Oheb Shalom has long supported refugees, according to Cantor Erica Lippitz. Lippitz said the congregation advocated on behalf of Soviet refugees from the 1960s through the 1980s and then helped resettle more than 40 families who came to the United States in the 1990s. Today, she said the synagogue is one of several sponsoring a refugee family from Syria.
And while immigration continues to be a hot button issue in the United States, Lippitz said it was important for Oheb Shalom to offer a different perspective on the matter by screening “Stateless.” The cantor said it is a moral responsibility of every religious community to raise questions and teach about ethical subjects. Because at the end of the day, she said, a decision regarding what to do about the Syrian refugee crisis can only come from one’s conscience.
“This is a human issue — not a religious issue,” Lippitz told the News-Record in a Dec. 20 phone interview. “This (screening) is for not just Oheb but for all people in our extended community of every faiths to better understand what it means to be a refugee, what that experience is. And then we’ll know the right thing to do.”
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