In my generation, the hero, the legend of our childhood was Natan Sharansky.
Back then, before he got out of a Russian prison, he was known as Anatoly Sharansky. I attended Jerusalem’s Noam elementary school, in which davening for and living and breathing Sharansky was such an intense part of it all. Avital — Sharansky’s devoted wife of one day before he was arrested — paid my school visits from time to time. Noam was affiliated with Mercaz Harav and it was through this yeshiva, I believe, that Avital embraced observant Judaism. Daily, we added a chapter of Psalms to our regular morning prayers in hopes for Sharansky’s release.
On the blackboard, in addition to the date and the Torah portion of the week, was a marking of how many days Sharansky had been incarcerated. Or, if he was on a hunger strike, the number of days of the hunger strike was noted.
Years later, besides A Tzaddik in Our Time, Sharansky’s Fear No Evil was the first non-fiction autobiograhy I read outside of school. I couldn’t put it down. His book ignited my love of memoirs and of hearing people’s stories.
The plight of Sharansky, symbolic of the plight of the Jews behind the phrase that Winston Churchill made famous, “the Iron Curtain,” was a part of our daily classroom consciousness.
When I think of Avital Sharansky, I think of one of the greatest Jewish heroines of our time. She singlehandedly gets so much of the credit for bringing world consciousness to the struggle of Soviet Jewry.
Here is a woman who conducted herself with the utmost dignity, humility, refinement and poise. A shy woman by nature, she was a lion when it came to confronting world leadership on the unconscionable incarceration of her husband for the “crime” of wishing to emigrate. A testament to her true modesty and leadership is that once her mission was accomplished, she quietly faded away from public life. Nothing about her was for superficial show or attention-getting or personal gain. She was the ultimate, authentic role model, embodying all that is right, good, real and strong about Jewish femininity.
Not to mention, when it comes to a love story, Avital and Natan Sharansky’s probably ranks with one of the greatest of the past century. If to the world, more than anyone else, it was Anatoly Sharansky’s name and face that was the symbol of Jews locked behind the Iron Curtain, it was the name and face of Avital who mirrored his, as the symbol of the Jews worldwide fighting against the Soviets for Anatoly’s and Russian Jews’ release. Which in time, and in our lifetime, did become a modern Exodus.
Yosef Mendelevitch, another famous name and emblem of the Soviet Jewry struggle, may be the most significant Russian Jew in bringing the plight of Soviet Jewry to the attention of the world with the Leningrad Trials of 1970.
When he got married, I had the merit of being at his wedding. At the time, on the way to the wedding, I remember as a little girl being squeezed to the corner of the elevator taking us up to the wedding. When the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, who should walk out but then Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his entourage of security guards! The grown-ups in the elevator were simply flabbergasted. I suppose security was a little different back then!
There was another elevator moment evening. I remember being hotly squashed in there, as in a sardine can of grown up bodies singing jubilantly — for the holy Yosef Mendelevitch himself as he came to his wedding.
So it was with great curiosity that I went to BMH-BJ this past Saturday night to hear Rabbi Avi Weiss reflect on his activism on behalf of freedom for Soviet Jewry. Even as a kid, without really following the news, somehow we all knew his name, “Avi Weiss” — some American Jew in New York who was always chaining himself to a fence in front of the UN, or getting himself arrested, yet again, on behalf of anonymous, suffering, Russian Jews.
If, to the world, it was Anatoly and Avital Sharansky’s names and story that captured the oppression and heartbreak of Jews behind the Iron Curtain, there was a third name and partner who, among many others, brought this story of the Soviet Jewish struggle to the masses, and that is none other than Avi Weiss.
With all the drama and eventual redemption in the saga of the the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ), you would think that his telling of his story would be fire and brimstone . . . Avi Weiss’s voice rising to a crescendo in emotional ecstasy. But no, like all the other players who shouldered the burden and privilege in this story of freedom, Avi Weiss holds our attention by speaking and sharing this chapter of Jewish history in our time, in calmness and palpable humility.
After quoting something from Glenn Richter, he follows up with: “You just heard the voice of a tzaddik.”
Over the years, my father has regaled us with stories of his own about the idealism of what was known as the “Triple SJ” from his student days at YU, where he founded the local SSSJ chapter. The names of Jacob Birnbaum and Glen Richter have been engraved in our family memory. Birnbaum founded SSSJ and he and his assistant Richter were the movers and shakers who made the SSSJ movement what it became — the catalyst of the entire worldwide struggle outside the Soviet Union for Soviet Jewry. I have had the privilege of davening with Richter at Cong. Ohab Zedek on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Another memory: A couple of days after Mendelevitch ’s long fought for release from a Russian jail, my father was present at Mendelevitch’s first press conference, Journalists from around the world hurled questions at Mendelevitch about what he thought about the Israeli government’s policy on Soviet Jewry and other matters. Mendelevitch — a fresh, live Jewish hero with the currency to say just about anything he wanted — responded with an ever humble, gentle yet firm lo bati latet eitsot le-rosh hamemshalah, “I haven’t come here in order to give advice to the prime minister.”
The evening at BMH-BJ was a tribute to the memory of Lil Hoffman, our very own Denver contributor to the fight for Denver Jewry. As the years wore on, Lil’s entire life purpose became the struggle for Soviet Jewry. A disciple in this matter of Rabbi Samuel Adelman and a partner with Rhoda Friedman, Lil completely, almost obsessively, devoted all of her energy and resources to this noble cause. It is her legacy.
At this tribute to Lil Hoffman, Rabbi Avi shared little gems and glimpses into what was a multi-decade battle.
For example, there was the time he was arrested with Mendelevitch in the Aeroflot office in Geneva, Switzerland. They were both strip-searched and humiliated, plus Rabbi Avi alluded to worse things that transpired there. In the merest of moments he paused ever so briefly, clearly recalling a painful memory, making a quick private calculation you can almost see on his face in deciding not to share it, leaving it behind in his heart, unspoken.
He did share, though, the force of Mendelevitch’s spiritual defiance. As they strip-searched him — by now a devoutly observant and learned Jew — Mendelevitch screamed with the removal of each of his garments, “I protest!” Avi Weiss was saying that Mendelevitch had the presence of mind to do this, and was not cowed by the brutal police.
The next thing happened so fast that no one knew what was happening. When the last of Mendelevitch’s garments fell to the ground, he, with tremendous speed, bent down to the floor, snatched his undershirt and . . . Rip. Rip. He tore it into two and then immediately plopped what now amounted to a torn shmatta onto his bare head. For they had taken his kippah too, and Mendelevitch was covering his head! As Mendelevitch fast closed in on his clothes, one of the KGB officers was simply dumfounded. This officer who moments earlier was the one stripping and humiliating Mendelevitch now said to him, “I don’t know what that cloth on your head means to you, but if it is so important to you, you can leave it.”
Mendelevitch, dressed or not, and at all costs not going to have his head covering, a seal of his Judaism, taken away from him — Rabbi Avi tells the story with awe in his voice, highlighting Mendelevitch’s courage to stand up for his Judaism and his faith in the face of these KGB officers.
Another Aeroflot moment. This one, humorous. A poster of bald headed Vladimir Lenin hung in the airline’s office. Another moment of protest: Mendelevitch slapped a picture of bald headed Sharansky over the Lenin, not quite in alignment, making both bald heads visible, resulting in a caricature of Lenin looking double bald headed.
Which segues to Friday night Shabbat dinner at Rabbi Avi’s home, where he inspired his family with the adventures and bravery of the Soviet Jews he would encounter. This time, in telling the incident with Mendelevitch and the Lenin poster, his young son, in genuine perplexity, blurts out, “Abba, I don’t understand, what does Mendelevitch have against John Lennon?”
Rabbi Avi mentioned that he has completed writing his memoirs, titling his book “One, Two, Three, Four: Opening The Iron Door.” He showed the book to his 95-year-old father, who responded: “Avrumie, it’s a wonderful book, but what’s with the title 1, 2 ,3, 4 — it sounds childish.”
Rabbi Avi dropped the “1, 2, 3, 4,” but said that, in a sense, being a part of the SSSJ movement meant that you had to have a naive child inside you, thinking that a few civilians could even toy with the idea of bringing down the Iron Curtain — fighting the Soviet machine one person at a time. “It’s crazy. It’s simply crazy. And you had to be a little crazy. The only thing was, what they didn’t realize is that we had G-d on our side.”
To Avi Weiss’ mind, the turning point of the SSSJ was the Leningrad Trials. They gave importance to SSSJ and began to bring official Jewish organizations on board to participate in the fight, to formalize it as part of the official Jewish agenda, worthy of the community’s resources.
Which was the goal of SSSJ’s founder Jacob Birnbaum all along.
The trials were triggered by the attempt of a group of refuseniks, among them Mendelevitch, to steal a civilian aircraft under the guise of wedding guests renting out an entire plane en route to a wedding. These refuseniks were prepared to be captured, or even to be shot down. Instead, they were captured before they took the plane and were sentenced to severe prison sentences. They brought the plight of Russian Jews to world attention.
Another humorous vignette: Once Sharansky was freed he was scheduled to make his inaugural appearance in the US in Rabbi Weiss’ shul in Riverdale, NY. The place was packed. Standing room only in the balcony, hallways, courtyard. There may have been over 5,000 Jews there who, after the culmination of years of praying, working and hoping for Sharansky’s release, came to witness this redeemed man in person.
After the event Weiss and Sharansky entered a taxi. The driver was beside himself when he realized who his passenger was. He insisted that Sharansky bless him and wouldn’t budge or move or take no for an answer. Sharansky said the rabbi should give the blessing, not him. Rabbi Weiss self-deprecatingly joked that the taxi driver wasn’t interested in his blessing, only Sharansky’s. Rabbi Weiss turned to Sharansky, who had successfully fought the evil KGB, and pointed out:
“You once told me that fighting the KGB was simple: whatever they told you to do, you did the opposite — it was a war of the minds. You may have overcome the wicked and controlling KGB, but this little Jew here, him you won’t overcome. In freedom, the automatic response is no longer refusal, and let me tell you something, this little Jew over here is winning this one. Him you’ll have to bless.”
To which Sharansky responded:
“I don’t know any blessings, how do I bless him?”
Rabbi Weiss: “Sure you do. You know how to bless. You put two hands upon a person’s head and you give a bracha.”
Sharansky finally relented, placing his hands on the short taxi driver’s head, and verbalized the only blessing that the communist educated Sharansky knew:
“Baruch ata Hashem Elokeinu melech ha-olam, ha-motzi lechem min ha’aretz!”
“Am Yisrael Chai” became the anthem of the SSSJ movement, composed for it by Shlomo Carlebach at Jacob Birnbaum’s request.
To this day, these are probably the most famous non- biblical Jewish words.
As the Soviet Jewry movement gained stature and eclipsed all those idealistic students and the troubadour Carlebach, who had been with the movement from the beginning, Carlebach suffered the hurt of being frozen out of the famous march on Washington for Soviet Jewry in 1987.
Rabbi Weiss shares homiletically how in Genesis when Joseph asks his brothers the famous question, Ani Yosef, ha-ode avi chai? “I am Joseph, is my father still alive?” the text is silent, offering no reply.
The way Rabbi Weiss sees it, there is a reply; only the terse, three-word reply comes thousands of years later, in a different era of Jewish oppression, a reply that helped shift the course of a people toward a modern day exodus, and that answer to Joseph’s question are the three words: “Am Yisrael Chai.”
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
