THE REFUSENIK PROJECT

A century ago the Russian Empire contained the largest Jewish community in the world, numbering about five million people. Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million but remains probably the world’s third-largest Jewish community. In the intervening century, the Jews of that area have been at the center of some of the most dramatic events of modern history — two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. They have gone through tumultuous upward and downward economic and social mobility and experienced great enthusiasm and profound disappointments. In startling photographs from the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and with a lively and lucid narrative, A Century of Ambivalence traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the 19th century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era. 

Nudel’s 16-year struggle to leave the Soviet Union is a moving personal story. A human rights activist, she publicized conditions in psychiatric hospitals and the plight of political prisoners, coordinated strategy with Andrei Sakharov and organized a protest against Anatoly Sharansky’s arrest. A leader of the Jewish emigration movement, she was exiled to Siberia for four years after she hung a banner from her apartment balcony proclaiming “KGB give me my visa to Israel.” She endured strip-searches, imprisonment in a cell full of rats, temperatures 60 below zero. Transferred to a one-room hut, she raised chickens and grew her own vegetables. Deliverance came in 1986 when Armand Hammer flew her in his private plane to Israel, where she rejoined her family, who had escaped in 1972. Her courage and indomitable spirit shine through in this memoir.

Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich was born in the small Baltic state of Latvia after the Second World War, which was under Soviet occupation. Yosef received a Soviet education, far removed from his Jewish faith and culture. His father, Moshe, was arrested by the Soviets when Yosef was 10 years old. His mother, Chaya Yenta, died soon afterwards. Despite his harsh childhood experiences, Yosef found his way to truth and faith and became one of the outstanding leaders of the Jewish revival in the USSR in the 1960’s. He considers the spiritual forces which enabled him to remain proud and unbowed during his 11-year incarceration in KGB cellars and the forced labor camps of the Gulag a miracle from Heaven. A Hero of Jewish Freedom consists of short stories drawn from Rabbi Mendelevich’s life experiences as a young Soviet Jewish freedom fighter imprisoned together with his comrades by the KGB after their failed attempt to hijack a Soviet plane and fly it to Israel. The author’s unique style turns the book into a work of art and makes the reader feel they are with him in his cell. The book celebrates the triumph of the love of life and faith, and shows how the struggle of the few helped to win freedom for millions of people in the Soviet Union. The hero is released and flies to Israel following his historic 56-day hunger strike. These stories of indomitable faith and ingenuity will inspire people of all ages and beliefs. 

Since the early 1960s, some 1.3 million Jews from the Soviet Union and its successor states have immigrated to the West, primarily to Israel and the US. Largely due to the imaginative and skillful mobilization efforts of Jews and their friends throughout the world, this great exodus had important ramifications for US relations with the Soviet Union/Russia and Israel. In addition, the success of American Jews in mounting and sustaining this lobbying effort represented a coming of age for the community, which only a few decades before had been unable to extricate millions of Jews from Europe and the Nazis. This book, part history, part celebration, combines essays by scholars with memoirs and first-hand accounts to chronicle this extraordinary rescue mission.

The story of a prisoner of Zion in the USSR. The book includes pictures (Hebrew). 

This book captures the story of the Taratuta family and their struggle to flee the hardships of the USSR and repatriate to Israel in the late twentieth century. The narrative follows the lives of three family members, Aba, his wife Ida, and their son Misha, as they endure countless struggles throughout their journey to freedom. Tense moments ensue as the refuseniks print copies of forbidden Zionist literature and textbooks, publicly support those detained in prison and the Gulag, organize scientific and legal seminars in their apartment, receive Western visitors, and secretly partake in weekly Hebrew lessons. Well-recognized in the West as central players in the Soviet Jewish movement in Leningrad throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Taratutas underwent constant surveillance by the KGB until they were finally able to repatriate to Israel. In spite of their hardships, the family attempted to live a life of normalcy and to cherish moments of happiness and togetherness.

Hillel Botman’s book details the growth and consolidation of the Zionist Youth Organization in Leningrad from its inception and details the stages of the emergence, expansion, and incarnation of the” Operation Wedding” plane hijacking plan. This plan was a terrible Jewish human drama that gave birth to a historic turning point in the struggle (Hebrew).

For 50 years, until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Soviet Union ran a campaign of repression, imprisonment, political trials and terror against its 3 million Jews. In Australia, political leaders and the Jewish community contributed significantly to the international protest movement which eventually triumphed over Moscow’s tyranny and led to the modern Exodus of Soviet Jews to Israel and other countries. Lipski and Rutland make this largely unknown Australian story come alive with a combination of passion, personal experience and ground-breaking research. 

A century ago the Russian Empire contained the largest Jewish community in the world, numbering about five million people. Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million but remains probably the world’s third-largest Jewish community. In the intervening century, the Jews of that area have been at the center of some of the most dramatic events of modern history — two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. They have gone through tumultuous upward and downward economic and social mobility and experienced great enthusiasm and profound disappointments. In startling photographs from the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and with a lively and lucid narrative, A Century of Ambivalence traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the 19th century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era. This book includes more than 200 photographs and two substantial new chapters on the fate of Jews and Judaism in the former Soviet Union, and is ideal for general readers and classroom use.

A fascinating account of the amazing Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins’ many encounters with Refuseniks in the U.S.S.R. Written in 1989, this book offers a glimpse into the life of those brave Soviet Jews and the people who tried to help them.

Inspired by the cautionary lesson of the silence of many leaders during the Holocaust and the fearlessness of the Civil Rights movement, from 1964 to 1991 grassroots activists spearheaded a worldwide liberation effort. The demand? That Jews be allowed to leave the Soviet Union. Unlike other accounts of this history, Open Up the Iron Door chronicles the activities of those working outside of, and often in opposition to, the Jewish establishment as seen through the loving, fiery, in-the-trenches perspective of Avraham (Avi) Weiss, a New York rabbi. This memoir interweaves one man’s personal struggles, doubts, and triumphs with the ups and downs of the activist movement itself its challenges and personalities, its passionate protests and dreams, its dizzying successes and failures spanning three decades of strategizing and meetings, sit-ins and hunger strikes, civil disobedience and arrests, and fervent pleas written, spoken, and sung.

In 1970 a small band of Soviet Jews, led by Eduard Kuznetsov and emboldened by the heroism of the Israelis in the Six-Day War, conceived a daring plan to escape the Soviet Union by commandeering a small civilian airplane. Beyond seeking their personal freedom, the group wanted their desperate act to ignite the world’s attention to the ongoing plight of Soviet Jews who were denied the right to emigrate.

Prison Diaries, by Eduard Kuznetsov, sheds light on their mission and details the preparations they made before attempting to seize the plane. It also describes from a first-person perspective the group’s ultimate arrest prior to boarding, and its ensuing trial, which resulted in death sentences for Eduard Kuznetsov and the mission’s pilot Mark Dymshits.

The distinguished Russian Jewish physicist recounts his life and career, from his childhood in Stalinist Russia, through his rapid rise in the scientific establishment, to his recent years as a dissident activist and outcast. 

The book tells the story of the Hassidic underground that operated in the Soviet Union, upholding Judaism during the rule of communist terror. Gripping narratives sweep the reader to distant lands and paint a picture of mysterious figures in Samarkand’s alleys, secret Torah study under the constant threat of arrest by the KGB, and the long and hard-fought victory in inspiring Jewish renaissance throughout the Soviet Union. 

Rabbi David Hill has been an activist on behalf of Jewish causes for over 60 years. Rabbi Hill helped build the Young Israel movement into the preeminent modern orthodox Jewish synagogue institution in the United States, serving as president of the National Council of Young Israel in the early 1960s. At about the same time, he became aware of the plight of Jews in the USSR and began meetings with senior American and Israeli leaders which played a significant role in placing the freedom of Jews in the Soviet Union on the world’s agenda. From his position as president of Real Kosher Sausage Company (commonly known as “999”), Rabbi Hill founded “Operation Lifeline” through the National Conference of Soviet Jewry (NCSJ). The mission of Operation Lifeline was to nurture the Jewish bodies and minds throughout the Soviet Union through education, Jewish books of all kinds and kosher food. This important work continues today in communities throughout the republics of the former Soviet Union.

This book discusses Anatoly Shcharansky’s activities on behalf of human rights in the Soviet Union and describes his arrest, trial, and imprisonment.

In September 1984, Lisa Paul, an American college student and nanny living in Moscow entered Inna Meiman’s house for her first Russian language lesson. And so began a two-year friendship and a fight for Inna’s life. In Swimming in the Daylight, Lisa chronicles her friend’s struggle to shed her refusenik status, obtain a visa to America, and find medical treatment for her malignant cancer.

This book examines the origins, history, and tactics of the American movement to aid Soviet Jews.

1989 is a turning point in the attitude of the Soviet authorities toward emigration. This year,  71,000 Jews left the Soviet Union. What brought us to this point? This book series is devoted to this question: Are Jews in danger? This book covers four points of view: (1) the Russian right; (2) Liberal circles; (3) Jewish reactions; (4) the Israeli perspective.

Yaacov Ro’i and his collaborators provide the first scholarly survey of one of the most successful Soviet dissident movements, one which ultimately affected and reflected the demise of a superpower’s stature.

The Jewish Movement saw hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews leave their native country for Israel. This book grapples with the movement’s origins, its Soviet and international contexts, and its considerable achievements—prior to the mass Jewish emigration of Gorbachev’s last years, about one-quarter of a million Jews left the Soviet Union. The contributors, a mix of senior and junior scholars, as well as movement participants, examine the influences of a wide range of contemporary events, including the victory of Israel in the 1967 war, the Soviet dissident and human rights movements, and the general malaise of Soviet society, its self-contradictory attitude toward nationalism, and its underlying antisemitism.

The book is based on a combination of secondary research, archival work, and interviews. The epilogue by former secretary of state George P. Shultz discusses support for the Jewish Movement under the Ronald Reagan administration, reactions and views by the United States as Gorbachev came to power and U.S. satisfaction with his denouement.

From the time of its founding, Israel placed the emigration of Soviet Jews at the top of its foreign policy agenda. But Soviet authorities permitted few Jews to depart; and in 1967, Soviet-Israeli diplomatic relations were broken following the Six Day War. From that time until 1990, Jewish emigration, along with other Israeli interests, was handled by the Netherlands embassy in Moscow.

Drawing on his experience as former Netherlands ambassador to the USSR as well as on extensive interviews with emigrants and on recently opened Dutch archives, Petrus Buwalda describes the turbulent events of the period when Jewish emigration from the USSR became an international human rights issue. As Soviet rulers opportunistically opened and closed barriers to emigration, Jewish “refuseniks” risked jail by demonstrating, and private organizations and Western governments alike protested their treatment. Nearly 560,000 Jews did succeed in emigrating from the Soviet Union.

Since his retirement in 1990, Buwalda has discussed emigration with many Jewish emigrants, and examined archives and interviewed officials in his own country, the United States, Israel, and Russia in order to tell the full story — analyzing the motives of would-be emigrants, the erratic Soviet response, and international interventions.