My November 1976 Trip to Moscow

In November 1976,  together with George Evnine/Yevnin,  flew off to Moscow for four days.

Just now, a letter I wrote at the time relating details was returned to me and it describes the trip to my wife's aunt:

In Red Square

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Rabbi Herschel Schachter and I

I was quite active, starting in 1964, on behalf of the liberation of Soviet Jewry through Betar, SSSJ and others in America and later in Israel and England.

At a Soviet Jewry Rally in 1965 at Seward Park [I think], me at right

I participated in the May 1, 1964 demonstration across from the Soviet UN Legation in Manhattan. In November 1976 I was in Mosow for three days, meeting Sharansky, Ida Nudel, Alexander Lerner, the Beilins and others.

Much later with Natan Sharansky in Jerusalem 

at the premiere of "The Refuseniks" 

(I always preferred "Refusedniks")

Raphael Medoff now has published a new biography of Rabbi Herschel Shachter. On his life here. Here is a discussion of the book held at YU.

I appear in it, as a writer of a column (and thanks to Rebbitzen Penner for informing of that).

The background was the first International Conference on the Soviet Jewry struggle conducted in late February 1971 in Brussels. That was when Rabbi Meir Kahane was arrested on orders by Shachter (as the book proves) and his contretemps with Menachem Begin.

The quoted section appears on pages 294-297.

And by the way, it happened again at the Second Conference in Belgium in February 1976.

And without further ado, the text:

"The Jewish Free Press (Columbia University) published a 1,500-word “open letter” to Schacter and Wexler by Yisrael Winkelman [me], a Zionist student activist. Addressing himself directly to the two Jewish leaders, Winkelman began by asserting that in his seven years of Soviet Jewry activism, during which he had taken part in numerous marches, all-night vigils, meetings, and leafletting, “I have never heard your names mentioned, never saw you holding a protest sign, never marched with you nor found you doing anything for the cause of Soviet Jewry.” Winkelman went on to accuse Schacter of “lying and besmirching a fellow Jew” when the rabbi recently told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, regarding Rabbi Kahane, “How much money does he make? What does he do with the money? I’m not saying he is a thief, but a lot of money stands at his service.” Winkelman also cited an incident in 1970, in which the national coordinator of the American Conference, Abraham Bayer, physically blocked the door at a Soviet Jewry seminar to prevent the entry of Dov Sperling, a Soviet Jewish émigré who had publicly praised the JDL. A photo of Bayer standing in front of the door, with Sperling peering through the window behind him, accompanied Winkelman’s Jewish Free Press article.102

Winkelman concluded his “open letter” by challenging what he saw as a mindset among established Jewish leaders to exclude dissenting voices. He pointed to the fact that Schacter was quoted in Ha’aretz as calling the Brussels conference “my wedding,” in the context of accusing Rabbi Kahane of attempting to enter without an invitation. “Perhaps,” Winkelman wrote, “the anti-democratic procedures [in Brussels] were an expression of the ‘my wedding’ philosophy of the American Jewish Establishment that has tragically hindered and delayed the development of a true forceful protest movement.”103

Rabbi Schacter was not a writer. He delivered countless sermons and speeches over the years; he also conducted eloquent correspondence with a few close friends. But except for a few rare instances (such as his Journal-American article about his trip to the USSR), he did not author essays for the press. In the case of the Winkelman episode, however, he made an exception. 

His rebuttal to Winkelman, which extended to more than 2,000 words, was published alongside Winkelman’s critique in the Jewish Free Press. Schacter’s decision to engage Winkelman, rather than ignore him, echoed his invitation to the SSSJ hecklers at Hunter College to speak from the stage just a few months earlier. The article offered a rare look at how Rabbi Schacter handled criticism and how he perceived the Soviet Jewry struggle and his role in it.

Schacter began by objecting to what he called the “insolent aspersions” Winkelman had cast on him. “Since my various humble efforts in behalf of Jews have escaped your notice until recently, let me tell you something about myself,” he began. “When I was younger than you are today, although already a rabbi in a substantial congregation, I volunteered for active duty in the U.S. Army and served with front-line combat troops across Europe.” He then described his experiences in Buchenwald, emphasizing, “I organized Kibbutz Buchenwald and was personally responsible for transporting over 500 Jewish children” from Germany to Switzerland. Schacter continued with a summary of his 1956 trip as part of “the very first select American rabbinic delegation” to the Soviet Union. “Since then I have been constantly ‘on the road’ preaching and teaching; bringing the message of Russian Jewry; rousing and calling Jews in America and various parts of the world to focus American and world attention on the plight of Soviet Jewry.”104

If the term “since then” was intended to suggest that he had been continuously engaged in such activities since 1956, then Rabbi Schacter’s assertion was something of an overstatement. The late 1950s and early 1960s were a time during which there was little public activity in the United States, by Schacter or anyone else, concerning Soviet Jewry. But that began to change in 1963–1964, and Rabbi Schacter cited his connection to SSSJ at that time as evidence that he, like Winkelman, was critical of the established Jewish leadership. “I do share your frustration and impatience with the much maligned establishment,” he wrote. “Ask Yaacov Birnbaum how many years ago it was when I worked hard with him to organize and chair the Bronx Council to Aid Soviet Jewry, how we mounted an impressive rally on the Grand Concourse, before it became popular to do so.” He continued: “Long before I reached my present position of leadership and many times since, I marched and carried protest signs. I may very well have been marching alongside of you without our being aware of each other’s presence. Do you still question my own personal commitment to Soviet Jewry?”105

After highlighting the anti-establishment orientation of the SSSJ and the Bronx Council to demonstrate his credentials as an activist, Schacter shifted gears and declared that “it was the American Conference on Soviet Jewry – and not Rabbi Kahane and JDL – [that was] responsible for most of what has been done in America for Soviet Jewry over the last seven years.” Just in the previous five months, he asserted, the American Conference was responsible for “literally millions of pieces of materials, fact sheets, bumper stickers, posters, Passover statements, etc. and large newspaper advertisements.” He was not at liberty to disclose that he had just authorized a $1,200 behind-the-scenes payment by the American Conference to SSSJ to underwrite a one-day “Student Strike for Soviet Jewry,” in which several thousand Jewish public and private school students in New York City left their classes to hold a rally at the United Nations, followed by a march to the Soviet Mission.106

With regard to the arrest of Rabbi Kahane, Schacter wrote:

The Belgian government . . . was determined to avoid any exacerbation of Soviet feelings, which it felt might result from Rabbi Kahane’s presence and activities in Brussels. The Belgian government alone determined, therefore, to ask him to leave the country. The Conference Presidium at no time, individually or collectively, made any representations to the Belgian government about Rabbi Kahane and was in no way involved in his detention and expulsion [that was less than true YM]. No matter how many times this lie is repeated, it remains just that.107

As for the quotations attributed to him in Ha’aretz, Schacter said that his statements about Kahane were “reported in a manner calculated to convey an impression different from what was intended.” He denied that he ever called Brussels “my wedding,” and added that far from “lying and besmirching” anyone, it was “your [Winkelman’s] camp” that was guilty of spreading “accusations, allegations and calumnies” that were “totally unfounded, false and unwarranted.” Rabbi Schacter did not, however, deny or explain the barring of Dov Sperling by the American Conference’s director.108

Concerning Kahane, Schacter wrote that the Brussels conference was “not a public mass meeting,” but was restricted to “accredited delegates and individual invited guests,” and Kahane was neither. Although he and his colleagues had nothing to do with the Belgian decision to detain the JDL leader, Schacter wrote, it was clear that since Kahane’s application had been rejected prior to the conference, his decision to go to Brussels proved he intended to “create a diversion and disturb or disrupt the Conference” – an argument that seemingly justified the arrest. To defend himself against the suggestion that he had acted in an anti-democratic fashion, Schacter charged that Winkelman’s camp was no more democratic: “Why do you deem our procedure any less democratic than yours? How long would I last if I appeared at a JDL meeting to denounce its program?”109

Schacter concluded his essay by citing a statement made by Menachem Begin in Ma’ariv after the conference: “I know Rabbi Schacter well. Today again I repeat and state he is a faithful Jew, dedicated to his people, a person of whom I am fond.” Presumably such words from Begin, who was both the leader of the Israeli right and a critic of the Kahane arrest, would prove beyond a doubt to Jewish Free Press readers that Winkelman’s accusations were unfair and inaccurate. Schacter likely assumed that few American Jews would have access to the full Ma’ariv article. If they had, they might have been surprised to see what followed Begin’s praise of Schacter. The next sentence in Begin’s op-ed read: 

“Precisely because of this, I asked him how he could have had a hand in issuing [the press release condemning Kahane].”110 

Rabbi Schacter’s bitterness over the Kahane episode lingered for many years. In an interview about Brussels nearly twenty years later, he recalled “that whole sordid chapter” of “the trouble that we had with Kahane and with the JDL”:

There are still Jews in America who think that Meir Kahane was the one who awakened American Jewry to the plight of the Jews in the Soviet Union. All he did was create a lot of noise. . . . We kept following everything that was happening the Soviet Union. We were involved in organizing civilized demonstrations, not the mishegoss of Meir Kahane and his few crazy followers. [H]e made a lot of noise and got a lot of publicity for himself, and, you know people – the old story of “man bites dog” makes news, and he did a lot of things that we thought were counterproductive. [T]he real efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry, which led to the beginnings of the Soviet Jewry movement and the response of the Soviet government, were not launched by Kahane. They were launched by the organized, authentic spokesmen of the American Jewish, if you will, establishment. . . . Civilized, meaningful  demonstrations were definitely helpful. . . . Do it like menschen [gentlemen]. Not like Meir Kahane, don’t throw bombs, but with tact and with diplomacy".111

----------------

102. “Winkelman’s Letter: Activist Scores Jewish Leaders’ Commitment,” Jewish Free

Press, May 1971, 4.

103. Ibid.

104. “Schacter’s Reply,” Jewish Free Press, May 1971, 4–5.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid.; Marc Schulman interview with Rafael Medoff, March 4, 2019; “2,000 Public

School, Yeshiva Students Leave Classes to Hold Strike for Soviet Jewry,” JTA, May 28,

1971; “Student Strike for Soviet Jewry” (leaflet), Box 8, Folder 12, SSSJ: Richter to Bayer,

June 30, 1971, Box 8, Folder 12, SSSJ.

107. “Schacter’s Reply,” op. cit.

108. Ibid.

109. Ibid.

110. Begin, “On the Brussels Conference.”

111. Wiener Oral History interview (1989), 4–6.

_____________________________________________

The PDF images:

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Michael Sherbourne z"l

One of my heroes of the Soviet Jewry struggle in which I participated, beginning on May 1, 1964, was not a Russian Jew but an English one, Michael Sherbourne.  For many years he was the 'man on the phone', calling sometimes 6 people a night for years, perhaps as many as 6000 phone calls in all over the period he was needed, to get information, relay information and keep up spirits as well as coordinate actions.  You cann see him in the 2007 documentary "Refusnik".

I met him when we were in London during 1975-77 and kept up the friendship.  

We last met a year ago in December when I was able to take advantage of an invitation to present at Limmud UK at which he would be officially awarded recognition from the Chief Rabbi Mirvis and Natan Scharansky.

Michael was, I think, 97 when he passed away this year, clear as a bell with a memory better than mine (he remembered my wife's name) and full of feisty spirit who kept up email exchanges on the topics of the day.

On the Wednesday evening that the Temple Mount conclave took place after which Yehuda Glick was shot, I found myself attending that and another event at the home of Ron and June Daniels in Michael's memory.

Among the almost 50 guests 

were Natan and Avital

Enid Wurtman, Glenn Richter

photo credit: Judy Lash Balint (more)

Elliot Jager and his wife, Yossi Klein Halevi, Judy Balint, Laura Bialis, Yosef Mendelevitch, Silva Zalmanson, Dina Belina and Vladimir Slepak, Silvia Becker and many other former Russian prisoners-of-conscience.

From Sasha Shipov:

More of Judy's pics:

Michael's two daughters were there and at least one granddaughter that I saw.

Michael was one of the underpinnings of that campaign and I have been privileged that we were friends.


P.S.  See comments for responses I received.

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Hope to See a Hero Soon

Hopefully, during the Limmud event, I will meet Michael Sherbourne.

Michael, who I last saw two years ago,

personally instructed me and the late George Yevnin (Evnine) on the eve of our trip to Moscow in November 1976 when I was in London and even provided some kopecks for phone calls.

Who is Michael?

When I'll let him speak for himself:

"I am reasonably well considering my advanced age  --  I am 96 and shall be 97 in February.  I wear two Hearing Aids, have only one eye and that has Glaucoma, Arthritis in both legs and I walk with a stick, but my heart is sound, my brain is still working well, and, what is most important, my spirits are as high as ever. Unfortunately, however, I am unable now to fly (the airlines won't accept "an old cripple") so it is most unlikely that I shall ever visit Israel again, which I deeply regret !!!

...I had personal contact [with refuseniks] during the twenty or so years that I made my (approximately) 5,800 telephone calls to the USSR.  Yes, that's right, (five-thousand-eight-hundred).  I didn't keep a record at the time, but shortly after Gorbachov threw open the gates I worked it out as about 5,800 calls.  I was given a free hand by a wealthy, deeply-Jewish-at-heart man, named Cyril Stein, who died only recently in Israel, who paid all my telephone bills during those hectic years. Otherwise I could not have done it.  Did you know that I also coined the word "refusenik" (as a translation of the Russian "otkaznik") in early spring 1971.

...My dear wife Muriel, died of cancer in Israel in 1995 and life has not been the same since then.  Even now, after more than 18 years, I feel the pain as if my right arm has been pulled off. And my three brothers have gone "the way of all flesh", as well as ALL my old friends, but I am fortunate in having good neighbours.
I could go on and on and on,  but I don't want to bore you."     

In another bigraphical note, Michael wrote this:

I became a convinced Zionist at the age of 16, in 1933 and I joined an organisation called "Histadrut Hechalutz B'Anglia" on my 18th birthday in 1935.  At the time there was a lot of unemployment in England, so when I left "a good job" in the Civil Service to go to the Hachshara Farm in Kent, to train for Aliyah, in 1937 when I was 20, I had a terrible row with my family, who thought I had gone raving mad, and (you may find this incredible) but 20 years later in 1957 my mother said to me "I've never forgiven you for what you did to me in 1937 when you left home to go to that farm".  !!!!!  And she never did forgive me till the day she died.

Two years later in 1939 we received Immigration Certificates (Remember this was during the British Mandate) and it was shortly before the outbreak of War) One certificate was for a married couple, so the rest of the group looked at me and my girl friend whom I had met on the farm and said "Well you two should get married !"   So we did and 9 of us left for Palestine. more or less as War was starting !!!  We had a nightmare journey through France to Marseilles and and even worse journey by ship to Haifa.  Normally
a 4 day voyage but because it was thought that Italy was going to come into the war at once, we had to dodge possible submarine attacks by the Italian Navy and instead of 4, it took us 14 days to get there.
We arrived on Rosh Hashana (1st day)  1939 with no one to meet us.

But this is becoming too long.  so in brief, we joined Kibbutz Anglo-Balti in Binyamina and later we took part in the founding of Kfar Blum in Upper Galillee.  But when we had news that my younger brother had been badly wounded by the Germans and taken prisoner, (and was a POW for the next 5 years !) I left the Kibbutz and was with the Royal Navy in Haifa throughout the War.We returned to England after the War in 1946 but I couldn't settle in England and in December 1947 we retuned to Palestine with two very young daughters (aged 4.1/2 and 1.1/2) and I imediately joined Haganah which very soon became Tzahal.  I was in Hativah Sheva, at the battles for Latrun against Abdullah's Arab Legion and we had very heavy casualties. Meanwhile my wife with the 2 babes was almost starving, living in a hut with no piped water and no electricity and by the time I left the Army it was obvious that she was very ill.  We returned to England (another nightmare voyage) and she was diagnosed as having T.B. (tuberculosis) in both lungs and a forecast of maximum of 2 years to live.  But she cheated the doctors, and one lung was removed, and she lived until 1995, when she died of Breast Cancer.

Meanwhile I trained to become a techer, and in reply from a communist friend who knew how anti-communist I had become (that;s another long story by itself) challenged me to learn Russian.  I took it up and became quite fluent and in 1962 at the age of 45 I gained a University degree B.A. Honours 2nd Class Russian language and Literature with Spanish and French.

I'll omit many years now and jump to 1969 when I joined the local AJEX Soviet Jewry Committee and began phoning to the USSR.  I coined the word "REFUSENIK" in 1971, and over the next 20 years I made over 5,000 (five thousand) calls to Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov, Gomel, Minsk, Grodno, Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, Tbilisi, Yalta, and ...  and ... and ..wherever there were Jews who were having problems, even to Vladivostok in the very Far East.  I had regular calls 2 or 3 tmes a week to Sharansky, Dina Beilin, Ida Nudel, and ALL the leading refuseniks, as well as gathering new names every time.  We had to have this information because Levanon (the B_______ !!) openly refused to help us.   I could write a whole book about my experiences.  It was very tiring but I was enthralled by it, and my name became a by-word and a password among the Refusenik circles,  I gave them information on a more or less daily basis and all the info. that they gave me I passed to 1. The Israeli Embassy in London, (where, I learned later they did not even study it but threw it in the waste bin) 2.  To the 35's and separately to Barbara Oberman with whom I worked in close co-operation, and 3. and this was most important, to the USA, where I had built up a network so that I only needed to make ONE phone call,  say to Detroit, and I knew it would all over the USA within an hour or so.  I had contacts in New york, Boston, Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Momtgomery (Alabama), Miami, Los Angeles, San Frncisco and I forget where else.  So I became a cenre of Information and today I have very many friends in Israel who know me from those hectic days when they wee refused an Exit Visa to "return home" to Medinat Yisrael.

Back in 2009, he sent this letter to the Jerusalem Post in a follow-up to a spat that developed over the historical narrative of the Soviet Jewry Campaign:

6 Dec 2009 14:16Subject: Soviet Jewry CampaignTo: mag@jpost.com
To the Editor,Jerusalem Post, Israel. Dear Sir, 
I am very disappointed to note that Sheila Silver RAVIV has chosen to repeat her story, which contains, unfortunately, a number of inaccuracies, which had already been pointed out to her. 
She states that her husband, Zvi Raviv, and his fellow students, organised "demonstrations which acted as a catalyst to challenge the Israeli Government to initiate the world wide campaign for Soviet Jewry". 
I fully agree with her that the Israeli Government was literally doing nothing in this respect, which is probably why the public in Israel had no idea that the world wide campaign had been started ("initiated ?") several years before.  Yakov Birnbaum in New York had  formed the Students Struggle for Soviet Jewry as early as 1961.   Hal Light had started a very active campaign for Soviet Jews in San Francisco in1963 and in that same year, 1963, Dr.Louis Rosenbloom and a number of his fellow scientists started their own campaign in Cleveland, Ohio, which soon joined those on the West Coast and rapidly formed the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews in cities all over the United States, from Minnesota in the North, through Chicago, Omaha, Denver, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Montogomery (Al), with massive demonstrations in every part of the United States by the middle and late 60's. 
There was also a very active group in Britain, founded by Barbara Oberman, called the "35's Women's Campaign for Soviet Jewry". 
This was achieved not only without the approbation or support of any kind from the Israeli Government but it encountered active opposition from the very secret committee which Golda Meir may have formed in response to Raviv's (no doubt courageous) standing up to her,   This active opposition led me to accuse Nehemia Levanon the Head of this "secret" office of attempting to sabotage our campaign.  I accused him in writing, and openly at a meeting in Jerusalem.  I called his committee "The Office With No Name", a title which stuck until he began to give it various names, such as "Lishkah" or "Nativ" and other fancy names.
 Sheila Silver Raviv refers to Golda Meir's "determination to free Sharansky".  This may well have been so, but in fact, Nehemia Levanon and his "Office with (now) Several Names" were in active opposition to Sharansky as he was "a dissident", and, as Levanon told a number of M.K.'s  "Sharansky's case is no concern of Medinat Yisrael".

I myself was someone, along with thousands of others who spent 6 years in the early days, sometimes daily and sometimes weekly, trying to liberate Soviet Jewry during 1964-1970, as someone who continued to be involved for many years afterwards, as someone who, while in England 1975-77, renewed my activism even traveling to Moscow for a long weekend to meet with Scharansky just after he came out of jail and who handed over there to Ida Nudel foodstuffs & books for the prisoners and bribe materials for the guards and who discussed matters with Prof. Alexander Lerner after being briefed by Michael Sherbourne and given coins for the public phones, who helped Barbara Oberman with Avital Scharansky's protests in London, and helped Eric Graus and George Yevnin (Evnine) with dozens of projects in the UK including participation in the Second Brussels Conference and coordinating European demos by activist youth, as someone who tried to help Yaakov Birnbaum and Glenn Richter with the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in NY, who was intensely involved with Geula Cohen's Soviet Jewry activities in Israel for three decades, as someone who slept alongside Yasha Kazakov in the freezing cold NY nights during his hunger strike in front of the UN in March 1970, among hundreds of other actions together with tens of thousands of others like marching through the streets of Manhattan (see some photos here).


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Short Memory

There's a new site up with this raison d'etre:

Twenty five years ago, when Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev made his first visit to Washington to meet with President Reagan, he was greeted by 250,000 Americans gathered on the Mall with the clarion call: "Let My People Go." It was the culminating event in a generation-long struggle to extend the universal principles of freedom — freedom to assemble, to worship, to travel — to the Jews of the Soviet Union...Freedom 25 was established to assure that the critical lessons of the Soviet Jewry movement are learned by future generations, so they can again be applied to expand the reach of freedom...

As a member of that "a generation-long struggle", when I joined the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry's first mass public demonstration on May 1, 1964, (and a second report) that 25 should really be at least 48.

From this thesis:

On April 27, 1964, however, about 200 college students from across New York City...declared the formation of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry...Several young activists demanded immediate action. Birnbaum and Richter agreed, planning to stage a rally outside of the Soviet Union’s Mission to the U.N. on May 1 (otherwise known as May Day, a major workers’ celebration in communist countries), just four days after the Philosophy Hall meeting. Despite hurried preparation, the SSSJ’s demonstration produced one of the first mass rallies of the Soviet Jewry Movement, as over 1,000 students from across Manhattan picketed the Soviet Mission for hours. The protesters marched two-by-two like the  early civil rights protests in the south and sang “Ani Ma’amin,” a repetition of the Hebrew phrase I Believe over and over again.

And we can't forget Morris Brafman's group. And Moshe Decter.  The 1962 Matzah Protest.  Cleveland.

And I hope someone somewhere is planning to 50th anniversary of that seminal event.

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Jacob Birnbaum - We Salute You

I have signed on to this salute to Dr. Jacob Birnbaum:

CREATOR OF THE STUDENT STRUGGLE FOR SOVIET JEWRY (SSSJ), FIRST INITIATIVE TO ADDRESS THE PLIGHT OF SOVIET JEWRY -- WIDELY REGARDED AS THE FATHER OF THE MOVEMENT TO FREE SOVIET JEWRY, will be presented with the Torch of Freedom Award at the RAJE (Russian American Jewish Experience) annual Gala, to be held on Thursday, March 15th 2012 at Gaustavino’s in Manhattan. This is the first time the Russian American Jewish community will have a chance to thank Dr. Birnbaum for his revolutionary and pioneering work on behalf of Soviet Jewry. Natan Sharansky, the famed Prisoner of Zion, human rights activist and current Chairman of the Jewish Agency, will deliver the Keynote address at the event and there will be a special Message from Senator Charles E. Schumer.

Here is a video prepared for the occasion:

And here are two outtakes of Betarim I caught:

That's Moshe Kiczales of Bronx Betar on the left and in the middle another Betari, Dov Skolnick, in 1964 1968 [? see comment] the first year of major mass public demonstrations that began:

The Betarim are carrying the Geula March sign:

Some other photos we've collected:

here

here


Some history:

here

here

here

here -

A group of former Betarim and other activist lawyers including Moshe Brodetzky, Morty Dolinsky, Yitzhak Heimowitz, Mel Stein and Judah Harris joined forces with SSSJ to set up the “Center for Russian Jewry” chaired by the movie mogul Spiros Skouras with a suite of offices in the Empire State Building. At its dedication the keynote speaker was Congressman (later President) Gerald Ford.

here

here.

And my wife's blog post on Laura Bialis' "Refusenik" film.

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Nahum Goldmann and I

Researching material, I came across this excerpt from the article, A CHANCE NOT TAKEN - Zionist-Hungarian diplomatic co-operation in the second half of the 1930s, by Attila Novák :-

In February 1938 [Jewish Agency representative to the League of Nations Nahum] Goldmann came to Budapest to carry out negotiations once again. His planned speeches were permitted by the Ministry of Home Affairs only after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs exerted serious pressure. The reason why there were problems with permission was that the revisionist Zionists circulated pamphlets and announced that they would disturb the visit, therefore the deputy head of the state security department of the police wanted to dissuade the Zionists from delivering the lecture. The reason why the Zionist right-wing disliked Goldmann was not related to the Hungarian problems, but to the fact that Goldmann, as the deputy of the Jewish Agency at the League of Nations, supported the plan for the division of Palestine, and opposed the revisionist slogan 'Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan'. [72] The Association took special precautions: the invitations to the lecture were distributed only after strict checking, and they planned to employ the civilian police of the National Association of Veteran Soldiers. The importance of the event is demonstrated by the fact that at the cabinet meeting on 4 February Kánya, minister of foreign affairs, interceded with József Széll, minister of home affairs, on Goldmann's behalf. There are no documents about the conversation with Gábor Apor, but we know that the visit had no direct consequences. On 4 February Goldmann had a talk with Tomcsányi, state secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, and was promised that the request of the Pro-Palestine Association to renew the authorisation for collections would be granted shortly. While in Budapest, Goldmann met with representatives of the Erez Yisrael ha-Ovedet, who shared with him the grievances of the Zionist left.

72. There were vehement articles which referred to the visit of Nachum Goldmann in Bne Betar, the organ of Hungarian right-wing Zionists: ‘A peches külügyminiszterjelölt’ [The unlucky candidate for the post of minister of foreign affairs] and ‘Tanulmány Út’ [Study tour]. Cp. Bne Betar, January 1938, p. 15 and March 1938, p. 31.

Funny, but in January 1967, I, and a dozen other Betarim from Israel, the US, Canada and France, demonstrated in Jerusalem's Binyanei HaUmmah against Goldmann at a session of the Vaad Hapoel-Zionist Executive in-between Zionist Congress.

We were protesting his position on the issue of demonstrations for Soviet Jewry which was to downplay the campaign and adopt a very servile diplomatic approach.

To avoiud detection, we wrapped banners around our bodies under our outer garments. I was participating on the Machon program and so there was a bit of tension as we were under the auspices of the Jewish Agency's Youth & Hechalutz Department at the time. It didn't bother our reputation amongst the Machoniks though.

We were hustled out from the balcony by the police and pushed downstairs and out the main steps where our picture was taken and pubished in the papers the next day.

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Baez at Berkley at a Jewish Demo 1978

Want to see a picture of Joan Baez at a Jewish protest event? In 1978? At Berkley?

Go here.

And another:

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Meeting Up With Glenn Richter

At the Begin Center Library in Jerusalem today, Glenn Richter and I:

I met Glenn in 1964. We were also together at a Queens College summer session course later. But more importantly, I was a volunteer worker under Glenn during 1964-1970 in the framework of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (and see this article and this one and the second chapter in this paper).

Glenn is here on a visit and took some time off to interview veterans on reminisces of that time in an oral history project (for the archives, see here).

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On Kissinger's "Apology"

From Glenn Richter, former director of SSSJ, who has tried posting
responses to Kissinger's excusing himself (Kippa tip: JTobin) based simply on emigration figures. This to show that Kissinger lied both in his initial response a couple of weeks ago and again in today's Washington Post op-ed. Here's his retort, posted online on the Washington Post site of the op-ed, and I hope, on the Jerusalem Post webpage of the article on the op-ed:

I think history disagrees with Secretary Kissinger. Whatever White House quiet diplomacy worked to free Soviet Jews, it was against an increasing background of public pressure on both the Kremlin and White House, not despite it. As an activist for Soviet Jewry since 1964, I well recall these years.

Secretary Kissinger also misstates the facts. He asserts that in Nixon's first administration, over 100,000 Soviet Jews emigrated. The fact speak otherwise. Emigration in 1969 was 2979, 1027 in 1970, 13,022 in 1971 and 31,681 in 1972, for a total of 48,709. The international public campaign for Soviet Jewry took off in 1971 after the sensational first Leningrad Trial of Jews seeking to flee the USSR. In 1972, the Soviets wanted an arms control treaty and reacted to the introduction into Congress of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which linked trade credits to the Kremlin with Jewish emigration.

Dr. Kissinger also stated in his initial response and in this op-ed that Jewish exit didn't exceed the 1972 total (which he claimed was 40,000) until the USSR collapsed. Simply untrue. In 1979, 51,320 Jews were let out, as the Kremlin attempted to reverse the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, by then law; then 71,196 in 1989, 213,437 in 1990, and 178,026 in 1991 as the Soviets tried desperately and unsuccessfully to gain US economic assistance.

********
And he adds:

Meanwhile, reading today the new and fascinating book, "The Student Struggle Against the Holocaust" (yes, title deliberately chosen) by Dr. Rafael Medoff and Rabbi David Golinkin, I found an eerie parallel.

The notorious Ass't Secretary of State under FDR Breckinridge Long testified on Nov. 26, 1943 before a Congressional committee re a proposed resolution calling on the White House to establish a rescue committee for European Jewry. Long declared that "we have taken into this country since the beginning of Hitler's regime and the persecution of the Jews, until today, approximately 580,000 refugees." The authors state that "a few days later his figures were exposed as false. The actual number of refugees admitted was not more than 250,000, and many of them were not Jews."

^

The 1962 Matzah Demonstration on Behalf of Soviet Jewry

I remembered a demo by Betar friends involving the dumping of Matzot in front of a Russian diplomatic institution but couldn't recall details. Here is our blog post on it.

In any case, I did receive this reminisce of the 1962 action, two years before the first mass public demonstration of May 1, 1964.

The 1962 Matzah Demonstration

Bernard J. Kabak, 1.22.04


What follows is an account of the 1962 matzah demonstration, as best as I can recall it. This account is created entirely from memory. (It is possible that I have some written materials pertaining to the demonstration among my papers, but I have not sought to retrieve them from storage.) This account is necessarily incomplete, as I have not conferred with others, particularly Benjamin Silverberg, who would have things to add and possibly to correct.

In early 1962, word had got out of the Soviet Union, and was reported in the general press, that the Soviet authorities were strictly curtailing the availability of matzah for pesach that year. While some matzah bakeries were allowed to bake a limited amount of matzah, other bakeries were closed down altogether. Nor were the authorities permitting the importation of matzah baked abroad. Plainly as a result of Soviet policy the supply of matzah would be inadequate to meet the needs of the Jewish population.

Responding to what was perceived here as a grave religious crisis for the Jews in the Soviet Union, students from several universities in New York City decided to hold a demonstration in protest. I cannot say anything about how the decision to hold the demonstration was reached or what went into the early planning, because I was not involved in the initial stage. Rather, I was asked to take the leadership reins to replace David Froelich, then a student at Yeshiva University, who was pressured by Y.U. not to participate. The other leader of the demonstration was Benjamin Silverberg. Benjy was, I believe, a student at one of the colleges of the City University system, but I’m not entirely sure. I was then in my junior year at Columbia, and I was tapped, perhaps, to draw students from the city’s private colleges to the demonstration. (Because of my activity in the Student Zionist Organization, I knew students at lots of schools in the metropolitan area.)

As word spread about the planned demonstration, we met some resistance, mostly from the orthodox world, primarily on the ground that it was better to work quietly behind the scenes. Because of the circumstances under which it was held, I recall in particular a meeting we had with Rabbi Pinchas Teitz, a noted leader from Elizabeth, New Jersey, who was adamant that the demonstration not go forward. I think it was a friend, Zvi Gittleman, who told us that Rabbi Teitz wanted to meet. We arranged to go to Rabbi Teitz’ house after shabbat. Coincidentally, Rabbi Teitz’ daughter Rivka became engaged just at that time. When we arrived at the Rabbi’s home, the place was packed with well-wishers. We joined the festivities, wished mazal tov all around, and drank a l’chaim.

It wasn’t till 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, after all this conviviality, that we got down to talk business. Rabbi Teitz’ essential point was that our confrontational approach would undermine the quiet, behind-the-scenes efforts that he and others were engaged in that supported Jewish life in the Soviet Union. We disagreed (perhaps out of the chutzpa and passion of youth), and went forward with our demonstration.

I’m not sure of the date of the demonstration. Pesach in 1962 fell in mid-April, so the demonstration must have been in early April or possibly late March. In any case, I believe it was on a Thursday. The turnout, almost all college students and high schoolers, numbered probably no more than a hundred, if that many. Not bad, we thought, considering our inexperience in these things and the opposition from our most natural center of recruitment, Yeshiva University. As an example of the pressure applied to people not to participate, Ephraim Buchwald, at the time a student at Yeshiva University High School, had points deducted from his academic average because he came to the demonstration.

The demonstration took place in New York City on East 67 Street between Third and Lexington Avenues. The police allowed us to parade right in front of the Soviet mission to the United Nations on that block. The demonstrators, who carried placards, were entirely orderly.

To our astonishment, after the demonstration had gone on for a while, the front door to the Soviet mission opened and someone came out to invite a delegation from the demonstration to come inside. I went in, but I don’t recall specifically who entered with me, except that I’m sure Benjy Silverberg had to have been there.

We met with several officials from the Soviet mission. I have no recollection as to their names or titles. The tone of the meeting was not argumentative. We pointed out, I believe, that the shortage of matzah contravened the promise of the Soviet constitution to allow freedom of religious practice. The mission official who did most of the talking acknowledged that, yes, perhaps the government’s matzah policy had been a mistake. After the meeting, we reported to the crowd outside.

I don’t recall whether the Anglo-Jewish press covered the demonstration. But the New York Herald Tribune (no longer published, but then a leading daily) carried a story the next day (Friday) that played up the official’s admission that the government’s policy was a mistake. This was at a tense time during the Cold War—the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred later that same year—when the Soviet mantra was the perfection and ultimate triumph of Communism. In furtherance of that worldview, disasters in the Soviet Union, whether natural or man-made, were kept secret, and the occurrence of errors, much less admitting to them, was inconceivable. So the fact that we got an official to acknowledge that a Soviet policy was a mistake really was news. (Later that day, I got a follow-up phone call from Irving “Pat” Spiegel, the Times’ Jewish beat reporter, who had been scooped on the story by the rival Herald Tribune, but the Times did not print any follow-up story of its own.)

That’s the gist of what happened as best as I can recall the demonstration. I will add that in 1977 I was in the Soviet Union visiting refusniks. One shabbat while there, I went to a shul where I picked up one of the few relatively new siddurim. On the inside cover was a plate noting that the siddur was a gift from Rabbi Teitz.

A few words of evaluation. Whether it resulted from our efforts I cannot say, but I don’t believe that from then until the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades later a shortage of matzah ever became an issue again. But plainly our demonstration had a limited purpose: to restore the supply of a specific religious need. Never did we imagine that within a short time after our demonstration there would be a groundswell pressing for a general enlargement of rights for Jews in the Soviet Union—especially the broad-scale right of emigration—that came to be known as the Soviet Jewry movement.

At the same time, I think the fact that we took our protest to the streets helped change the attitude of the organized American Jewish community, which, till then, had shied away from public outdoor demonstrations. New York City’s first Salute to Israel Parade followed not long after, then the marches and rallies for Soviet Jewry, and the rest.

Should you wish to follow up on my recital with any of the people I’ve mentioned, here’s what I can tell you about them today:

Benjamin Silverberg lives somewhere in northern New Jersey, possibly Bergen County. I believe he works in New York City either in accounting or information technology.

David Froelich lives in Israel. Years ago he worked for the one of the government ministries, possibly the Comptroller’s office.

Ephraim Buchwald is a rabbi in New York City, a giant in the kiruv movement who heads the National Jewish Outreach Program.

Rabbi Teitz is deceased. His community in Elizabeth, NJ is now led by his son

Rivka Teitz is married to Rabbi Yossi Blau.

Zvi Gittleman is a scholar in the field of Russian and Eastern European history. I believe he is on the faculty of the University of Michigan.

Pat Spiegel is deceased.

^

Soviet Jewry Activists Reunion

That's the legendary Michael Sherbourne who was the main contact person via telephone for many years to the Jews of Soviet Russia, receiving reports and basic information that fed the struggle for their repatriation, with me:

On the right, Dina Beilina who I first met in Moscow in November 1976:

With Michael is Barbara Oberman, founder the the 35s and later the UK Campaign for the Release of Soviet Jewish Prisoners

Sheila Silver Raviv Un-Facebooked Me - BooHoo

This is now somewhere at Facebook:

"Sheila Silver Raviv: I removed Yisrael medad from my list and my Facebook. He denies my writings and claims my article about Zvi and Soviet Jewry to be untrue. The man is locked in his own world and believes no-one else has the right to speak of their experiences. This is the first and last time that I will write about another human being...in anything but glowing terms. I apologise but cannot deal with his nastiness any more." December 7 at 10:41am

Dear Sheila,



Yes, I am guilty, I denied your very specific two claims which are false and misleading.

Not only I, but Yaakov Birnbaum, Glenn Richter, Judy Balint, Michael Sherbourne, Barbara Oberman-Katz, Judege Haran Feinstein and many others.

Since Sheila, you may still be able to convince persons unknown that you are somehow correct and I am the evil one, let me repeat your misrepresentation in red:

It is unfortunate that Zvi Raviv's wife, Sheila Silver, misrepresents the chronicles of the Soviet Jewry struggle.

To write that only after prime minister Golda Meir had been pressured by students to go public, "the campaign went worldwide and communities and organizations began to pressure the Soviet government," is a historical inaccuracy.

The Israeli students' rally 40 years ago made a major contribution to the struggle for Soviet Jewry. However, in no way did it cause the government, or even the Jewish Agency, "to initiate the worldwide campaign for Soviet Jewry." That campaign had been in existence as an activist struggle of sit-ins, demonstrations, mass rallies, writing campaigns, smuggling in literature to Russia and much more, since May 1, 1964...

If you think that Sheila is correct, ask her for the correspondence she received over the past month about her errors of omission.

Important Soviet Jewry Campaign Piece

It's here. A rewrite of this original blog post (which was heavily criticized at the time by many of the struggle leaders).

I am guessing that the headline, The real saviors of Soviet Jewry, was given by the editor.

I hope so, anyway.

Otherwise, someone is exaggerating.

You see, to write that it was only after Golda Meir, then Prime Minister, had been pressured by students to go public that "the campaign went worldwide and communities and organizations began to pressure the Soviet government" is an historic inaccuracy.

The Israel students rally forty years ago was quite important and crucial and made a major contribution to the struggle for Soviet Jewry seeking to leave or gain freedom of religion and culture. However, in no way did it cause the Israel government or even the Jewish Agency "to initiate the worldwide campaign for Soviet Jewry".

That campaign had been in existence, as an activist struggle of sit-ins, demos, mass rallies, writing campaigns, smuggling in literature to Russia and much more, since 1964.

The real "diamond" in this story is that Zvi Raviv and others were unaware of the problem in 1969!

Maybe they didn't read newspapers about diaspora events (unlike we who pored over newspaper reports on what was happening in Israel). That, of course, is indeed indicative of the low-keyed policies that the Israel government so mistakenly pursued then. Jewish youth in the United States had met Dov Shperling a year earlier and heard the truth and were galvanized to take to the streets. Geula Cohen spoke at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum in front of thousands to influence us. Shlomo Carlebach had already performed his "Am Yisrael Chai".

Yes, the Israeli genesis "deserves recognition" and so does the activist worldwide genesis of 1964.

==================

Here are some of the talkbacks:

This article's publication was preceded by many e-mails to Zvi Raviv & his wife Sheila by Soviet Jewry activists in Israel, the US and England pointing out to them that the public campaign began in 1963 in the US, boosted considerably by the creation of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in 1964, with other activity from Establishment organizations. We explained that in 1969, in addition to Israeli student pressure on Golda Meir to speak out publicly, Soviet Jews in the USSR openly urged her to do so, as did Russian olim in Israel. Unfortunately none of the above was in the article. - Glenn Richter

There were many. One who deserves mention is Elie Wiesel whose book "The Jews of Silence" in 1966 was the first exposure that many Jews had to the situation of Soviet Jews. - Jonah

Wouldn't you think that readers would like to know that this article was written by the wife of the subject of it?? Sheila Silver RAVIV authored this piece about her husband--see her FB account for confirmation. Dave #2 and Avrom #7 are absolutely correct in their assertion about Israel's dismal role in the worldwide campaign on behalf of Soviet Jews. Zvi Raviv and Yona Yahav may have tried to change things but they surely weren't too successful in moving the sha shtill Israeli bureaucrats off their rear ends. Revisionist history promoted by the Jer. Post. - Judy Levitin

Thank you Glenn, founder of Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry , for clarifying the record. It would have been fine had Mrs. Raviv written about her husband's experiences and documented his efforts, but to extrapolate that it was those efforts in 1969 in Israel that sparked the worldwide movement is just plain not true, as attested to by those activists in the west whose efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews were stymied at every turn by Israeli arrogance and bureaucracy. It's also unconscionable that the Post chose not to inform readers about the relationship between the author and her subject. - Judy Lash Balint

Both article and title are quite incorrect. I coined the word REFUSENIK and knowing Russian became the main centre of information making over 5,000 phone calls from London to USSR in 20 years. The claim that Raviv "initiated" the world wide campaign is false - there was an active campaign with mass demos from 1963 in USA and the 35s in Britain against fierce opposition from Israeli Officials trying to sabotage and control and silence us giving no support whatsoever to Sharansky saying he was a dissident and not a concern of Israel until the moment he arrived at Ben Gurion in 1986. Michael SHERBOURNE - England

My book, TRIUMPH OVERF TYRANNY: The Heroic Campaigns that Saved 2,000,000 Soviet Jews, www.triumphovertyranny.com, shows how Louis Rosenblum and his colleagues in Cleveland, Ohio founded an organization of grassroots activists in 1963 that ultimately convinced the US government to legislate for free emigration of Soviet Jews. - Philip Spiegel

Soviet Jewry Struggle Memory

The following is excerpted from a description of the wedding of Rachel, daughter of Avital and Natan Scharanksy in Jerusalem two weeks ago when the writer began musing on her connection to Natan. As it bears on actions of my youth and that of my wife, I found it appropriate to post:

On one memorable occasion I remember how shocked my parents were when, twenty-five odd years ago, a group of us disrupted a concert of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Half way through the performance, we shed our outside clothes to reveal the striped “prison uniforms” we were wearing underneath, and handcuffed ourselves to the railings of the balcony in the auditorium, yelling our Soviet Jewry slogans and shaking our fists. As the cellos and violins and violas of the Moscow Philharmonic came slithering to halt, we knew, in the dealthly silence that followed, that our Refusenik brothers and sisters would be listening thousands of miles away on the BBC World Service. It was only a few minutes before infuriated police officers arrived on the scene with large metal pincers to cut us free from the railings, but it was enough.

I speak of it now as if it were a childish prank, but it was not an easy thing to do. We were young and idealistic, but we were also nicely brought up middle-class Jewish girls and boys. We had all been taken by our parents on one Sunday evening or another to hear a concert at the Royal Festival Hall. We had learned to sit politely and not fidget and not applaud between movements. For years we had enjoyed Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saens and Schubert in this bastion of British culture, and now we were more or less spitting in its face.

The second before I had to stand up along with my friends, and shout at the top of my voice into the silent abyss of the stalls, my courage failed me and I did not think I could do it. The only thing, the only thing, which enabled me to get to my feet, was the thought of Natan in his solitary confinement cell, the thought of him never seeing Avital again. The reason why so many Jewish youth were participating in these demonstrations all over the world, was that Natan’s story was not just a prisoner story, or a persecution story, or even a Jewish story. It was a love story.

I am here with her but I am not really here at all; I have risen in one second to my feet at the Royal Festival Hall, and have screamed : “Free Sharansky!” like an animal, at the respectable Russian musicians playing classical music on the stage below.

I have always known, across all of the years, what I was shouting for that night. But today, looking at Rachel’s face, at that beloved and wonderful genetic combination of Natan and Avital, today I really know.

And then, she added this:-

When it was time for the groom to break the glass, Natan took the microphone to say a few words. “I’d like to say something about why we are breaking this glass” he said, alternating seamlessly between English and Hebrew.

“Thirty-four years ago, in a Moscow apartment, Avital and I stood under a sheet held up by four boys, for our own Chuppah. There were barely enough people to make up a minyan. We had never been to a Jewish wedding before, and we had no understanding of what to do. We mouthed the words that the Rabbi told us to say, without knowing their meaning. But the breaking of the glass, this we understood very well. We had one challenge, and the challenge was very clear to us. We knew that we had to get to Jerusalem. No matter what it would take, no matter how many years, we had to get to Jerusalem and build a home there. And this is what we did.”

“So now you are standing under the Chuppah Rachel, a child born in Jerusalem, overlooking Jerusalem, the first sabra in our family, marrying Micha, the first Oleh Hadash from his family. And this begs the question: Why should we break the glass at all? We are here, after all. Jerusalem has been rebuilt, and it is a vibrant city.

But the reason we are breaking the glass is this: the challenge that faces you, Rachel and Micha, is different to the challenge that faced us. You will make a home in Jerusalem, yes, but you must simultaneously have your feet on the ground, building a Jerusalem shel mata, a physical Jerusalem, while always keeping an eye on the Jerusalem shel ma’alah, on what it means, on what it represents. It will be your mission, and the mission of all your generation, to defend Jerusalem, to protect her, to keep her safe. And I think that your challenge may, in the end, be even more difficult than ours”.

My Wife Will Have Something to Say About This

"This" being an article on Stern College and SSSJ's campaign for Soviet Jewry.

Here's an excerpt from an article, "1960s Youth Protest: Jewish Activism at SCW" by Sophie Marmor -

When most people think of American college campuses during the 1960s, they think of tie-dye, The Beatles, and massive demonstrations. But when people think of how Stern College for Women fit into that context, they are clueless as to what to imagine. Did the counter-culture movement somehow find a way to seep into the halls of Brookdale? Did the religious authorities recoil in horror as they watched millions of young people challenge "the establishment?"

History indicates that the women of the college also left their mark during that decade of protest, advocating for the release of Soviet Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain.

Founded by Jacob Birnbaum with the help of students from Stern and Yeshiva College in 1964, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) was the only national organization dedicated solely to the cause. Comprised of campus chapters from across the United States, the SSSJ organized hundreds of demonstrations on behalf of oppressed Eastern European Jews, most notably the Passover Vigil of 1967 and the Chanukah March of 1966. These rallies were as lively as the protests of other movements during the 1960s, and featured large banners and songs composed by none other than Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. His "Am Yisrael Chai" melody was a staple of SSSJ events, much the same way in which "We Shall Overcome" became the official anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.

Given the prominent place that Yeshiva held within the SSSJ, the women of SCW were often asked to take leadership positions at rallies. It is somewhat hard to imagine a Stern student today shouting into a bullhorn in front of a massive crowd, but such was the norm in the 1960s. Although the SSSJ was a conglomerate of many university chapters, the YU community always comprised 25 percent of the organization's membership. Given the relatively small size of the college, this is a truly spectacular statistic.

However, the greatest testament to the university's role in the SSSJ is not a mere number. In December of 1969, the SSSJ held its largest national conference at YU. The SSSJ invited other organizations to participate in the famous meeting as well, including the American Jewish Congress, United Synagogue of America, and the National Council of Young Israel. Not only did the conference help to mobilize support for the SSSJ, but it also bolstered YU's prominence in the American Jewish community.

You see, my wife was indeed one of those leaders between 1967-1969.

I wonder if Sophie found reference to her in her research.

The Film "Refusenik"

My wife and I, along with 200 others, including Natan & Avital Scharansky, Vladimir and Marina Slepak and a host of others who were at the center of the Soviet Jewry activist struggle between 1964 and 1989 or so, were present at the world premiere showing of the film, "Refusenik" produced by Laura Bialis, this evening at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.



As I have written previously (here), I was involved in the struggle starting in early 1964 having participated in the first public mass demonstration on May 1st that year, helping out at SSSJ, doing Betar activities and meeting my future wife while sitting on the sidewalk outside the Soviet UN Legation offices in Manhattan on Tisha B'Av 1967 and probably culminating in my trip to Moscow in November 1976.

The movie was quite an emotional experience. I saw on the screen David Sprung, Moshe Kiczales and the late Chuck Hornstein-Haran among hundreds of others in many demonstrations and rallies. Stars of the film from those years were Yaakov Birnbaum, Glenn Richter and Michael Sherbourne. There was Yossi Klein Haevi and others and, of course, the Russians.

Certainly, the movie could have done more. We were shown perhaps 5 seconds of Rabbi Meir Kahane speaking at a rally but nothing else about the JDL activities. Except for a Rome demo and some very too brief clips of seconds each, perhaps, the footage of the rallies and demos came from the US. Although Avital did mention the 35s, the film could have been more international. Yasha Kazakov's hunger-strike in front of the UN, a major attention grabber in March 1970 (he slept in my sleeping bag) wasn't included. Geula Cohen's early efforts, including a 1968 visit to the States, weren't included.

So, without further ado, here are some photographs:-

Some of the film's personalities on stage afterwards -


I can make out (from left to right): Yossi Klein Halevi, Yuli Edelshtein, Avital Scharansky, Marina Slepak, Natan Scharansky, Zev Yaroslavsky (in back), Hillel Butmann, Vladimir Slepak, Dina Beilina, 90 year-old Michael Sherbourne & cane.

And another (Laura Bialis is at the far left):



and some more personal pics:



Natan Scharansky and friend



Left to Right: Rosaly Yevin (Evnine), Barbara Oberman and Yisrael Medad.
Rosaly's late husband George was a major figure in the maintenance of phone communications with the refuseniks and my fellow traveler to Moscow. Barbara Oberman, of course, is the founder of the 35s group in the UK.



Left to Right: Bobby Brown, Yossi Klein Halevi and Yisrael Medad

and here's Rosaly, Barbara and my wife:



P.S.

More articles on the early days here and here

P.P.S.

Why is the term "refusenik" instead of "refusednik"? After all they didn't refuse; they were refused the right to emmigration. Odd that.