In this lesson plan, student groups imagine that they are advocating for Soviet Jews. Each group will learn about a different Refusenik, and then create a clear advocacy to bring public attention to their Refusenik’s case. Students can utilize different mediums, such as drawing, writing, song composition, speech writing, creating artistic collages, and more. 

• Students will learn the stories of individual Refuseniks. Through learning these stories, students will gain an understanding of what it was like to be Jewish in the Soviet Union.
• Students will learn about the activities of those who fought for Soviet Jewry in the West.
• Students will be inspired to protest and support human rights issues in original and peaceful ways.

Before the 1960s, the West was largely unaware of the extremity of the Jewish problem in the Soviet Union. In 1965, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Soviet Union by Ha’aretz to report on the lives of the Jews there, and, in 1966, he published “The Jews of Silence”, his eyewitness account of what he saw there. His book was a wake-up call to action, directed at world Jewry whose silence regarding Russian Jews was deafening, and greatly helped raise public awareness for the cause. Jews around the world began rallying, lobbying, and doing everything they could to release the Jews from the Soviet Union. These efforts helped lead to the eventual fall of the Iron Curtain and the mass emigration of Jews from the Union. During the 1970s and 1980s, Jews from all over the world staged rallies, wrote letters, and begged and pleaded for Soviet Jews to be granted emigration rights. School children wrote letters to the Soviet leadership, and many Bar and Bat Mitzvah-aged children “adopted” Soviet children with whom they “shared” their Bar Mitzvah celebration. On December 6, 1987, the largest rally in support of Soviet Jewry was held in Washington D.C., on the day before Mikhail Gorbachev was to meet with U.S. President Ronald Reagan. More than 250,000 people attended this historic “Freedom Sunday” rally that sent waves throughout the world and helped the imminent lifting of the Iron Curtain. In 1986, even without the use of the internet or social media, Jews around the world were able to spread the word and mobilize a massive turnout for the rally. They did this by writing in local papers, creating a telephone hotline, holding lectures, running educational programs, organizing transportation to Washington, and handing out pledge cards and pamphlets in local synagogues with slogans such as “Gorbachev is coming to Washington…are you?”

• Printed pictures and biographies of Refuseniks
• blank poster board for collages
• pen and paper for all students
• art supplies such as markers,  glue, etc