How in the United States fought for Soviet Jews

The movement "Students' Fight for Soviet Jewry" was born in 1964 year. Two years later, Elie Wiesel published a book, “Jews of Silence”, describing the situation of Jews behind the Iron Curtain and how they dream of reuniting with the Jewish people.

Фото: Depositphotos

These events half a century ago have become a catalyst for irrepressible movement. 1967's six-day war of the year gave Soviet Jews a sense of pride mixed with religious and national identity. This led to public trials and imprisonment of leaders who appeared in the ranks of Soviet Jewry. These events, in turn, awakened a sense of pride and responsibility among the Jewish diaspora and other people who understood that before and during World War II, too little was done to save Jews in Europe.

In 2017, 30 turned another important moment in the movement of Soviet Jews, which had a considerable influence on the outcome of this struggle. In December, the largest demonstration in support of Soviet Jews took place in Washington 1987 in Washington, in which more than 250 thousands of Jews and Christians took part. They prayed for Soviet Jews and demanded that the USSR give them freedom. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it is difficult to find people younger than 30 and even 40 for years who know at least something about this page of Jewish history. But for me these events and their prehistory have great historical and personal significance.

I am not an expert on this movement and have never been a prominent participant. But from a young age it was a central component of my self-consciousness. Others in their youth spent their time on more earthly things, and in my life I was more and more engaged in the liberation of Soviet Jews. I read the Exodus at the time of my religious majority of Bar Mitzvah, and this book touched and inspired me. Preparing for a bar mitzvah and reading in the Torah about the exodus of my people from Egypt, I felt something new in the depths of my soul. I learned more and more about the heavy share of Soviet Jews, and this prepared me for active work in the movement, which was an initiative from below, but by that time it was already closely connected with the organized Jewish community. Among its participants were rabbis and pastors, students, housewives, pensioners. This movement acted by methods of noisy street protests and quiet (backstage) diplomacy. I was attracted to him by the desire to restore justice, to participate in the liberation of his people, as well as a lively idea of ​​leaders who seemed to want to take the world by the shoulders and shake him until there was a change in him.

In those days, my mother usually cooked food, and we most often had dinner with the whole family. At that time, these dinners seemed unremarkable to me. But once a few months before my brother’s bar mitzvah, we sat at the table, and mother told a story from Hadassah magazine that changed my whole life. The article talked about "fraternity." Families participating in this initiative celebrated religious maturity in various ways along with Soviet teenagers who were deprived of this opportunity. I was inspired by the idea of ​​becoming with someone else by correspondence, to overcome thousands of kilometers, different political ideologies, mentally cross all borders and delve into Jewish history. An activist was born in me, and I decided to act.

Brotherhood had two goals. First, to tell everyone about the plight of Soviet Jews, not only to make everyone aware of their situation, but also for people to take the struggle for their freedom as their personal responsibility, for it to go from family to family, from child to child. to kid. Secondly, as far as possible, as far as Soviet censorship allowed, to correspond with teenagers from Soviet Jewish families (and with the families themselves), with whom American Jews became sister brothers in bar mitzvah / bat mitzvah, giving them hope and inspiration, reminding that they are not forgotten, that they are part of the Jewish people, and that the rest think about them and care about them.

I was told that it gave them invaluable hope. In addition, everyone understood that if the world knew about the difficult fate of a Jewish family in the USSR, this would be a kind of insurance and a guarantee that nothing bad would happen to them.

Of course, surely no one knew anything, since the only sequence of the Soviets was their inconsistency. No one knew what could cause the Soviets to change their anger to mercy, and what strengthened their intransigence and stubbornness.

My brother became a pen pal and brother in the bar-mitzvah of the boy Michael, who lived in a distant Soviet republic. My brother wrote him letters, my mother wrote letters. Michael was mentioned at the ceremony of the Bar Mitzvah and at the festival in honor of religious maturity. But there was no sign that Mikhail and his family received these letters, and they also knew what they were thinking and worried about in the suburbs of New Jersey.

I was inspired and ready for action, but at the same time, I was discontent with the fact that I was not able to do something similar to my bar mitzvah. As a member of a local organization of young Jews, I decided that I should have my own spiritual family by correspondence, and told myself that I would act in this direction, calling for other people to do this on a local, regional, and national scale. The editors of the Hadassah magazine sent me to an organization to assist Soviet Jews, where I was given the name and short biography of a Moscow family, Stein. The father of the family Victor worked as a pharmacist. His wife Lyudmila was a linguist and worked as a translator. They had two daughters, Katya and Lena.

Inspired by the large-scale departure of Soviet Jews in 1979, and thinking, like many others, that the doors to freedom are open, and in the near future they will be free, Victor and Lyudmila submitted an application to leave the USSR. Instead, Stein was fired from his job and denounced as disgraceful as traitors. For this reason, they became members of the rapidly growing army of "otkazniks", as Soviet Jews were called, who were denied the right to leave. These people were ostracized and discriminated against in society and found themselves imprisoned in their own homes.

Victor was able to find random earnings, which was extremely difficult in a country where everything was controlled by the state. He worked as a night watchman, photographer, doing everything possible to earn a few rubles and ensure a normal life for the family. Katya, who was two years younger than me, attended school and knew English very well. Lena was small and did not know that her family was abandoned. Parents tried to hide from her harsh truth. They continued to learn, but discrimination and anti-Semitism often occurred. Katya wanted to go to study at the doctor, but she wasn’t given a higher education. However, she managed to study as a nurse, and then get a job, because the demand for these low-paid specialists was great.

I started writing letters to Steins every month, and then to Kate. It was difficult to communicate in that era in comparison with the present times, when you can instantly sign up as "friends" for someone from overseas and automatically translate texts from one language to another. Each page of the letter had to be numbered in order to know what the “first, second, third page of my first, second, third letter” was about. This was done so that in case of a friend's arrival by correspondence it was possible to find out which pages are missing, which were censored or openly stolen by the Soviet censors. I also called others to write to Steins. Some have written. Sometimes. But no one treated it with such diligence and perseverance, like me. By naivety, stupidity, or for some other reason, I felt obligated to do this and believed that this was important for Steins.

One time in the spring of 1982, I received a letter from Moscow. Kate wrote on behalf of the whole family, because we were almost the same age and could make friends.

“I was very glad to receive your letter. I'm 15 years old. In June, I have to take exams in Russian literature, algebra, geometry. I learn English at school and in language courses. In the USSR, most Jews do not celebrate Pesach, and we only have holidays on New Year's Eve .... 9 May we celebrate Victory Day (37 years ago the USSR defeated fascist Germany), and 8 May was my birthday. Could you write in the next letter what information you want to learn about the USSR, about Russian culture and so on. ”

It was a good way to practice English. She signed her letter: "Sincerely yours, Katya." So began our friendship. So I had a Jewish family in the Soviet Union.

Our first letters were completely neutral. I was given strict instructions on what to write and what not. Any wrong phrase and even a word could be used as evidence and lead to arrest on trumped up charges, which the Soviet authorities often used to prosecute and jail Jewish activists. I took these instructions very seriously and developed some code, believing that the Steins would understand it. True, we did not even discuss it. As a result, even if they perceived my writings as complete nonsense and did not understand my hints and signals, I regarded this correspondence as a serious duty. Response letters gave me an incentive to continue the correspondence. I sent my letters by registered mail, receiving notification of delivery to their addressee. This was done in order to have some kind of documentary confirmation of the delivery of the letter - or that the Soviets impede such correspondence.

In my first letter, I wrote about mutual friends who told me about Steins, that I wanted to correspond, I wanted to know about their life, that I was interested in the Soviet Union. Everything was quite harmless, and this first letter successfully overcame the slingshots of the Soviet censorship. After some time it became difficult to distinguish which letters reach and which do not. And although not all letters arrived without hindrance, the Steins knew that I was writing. Those who should have delayed these letters knew about it. I was charged with energy by the hope that I could help them, like that mirage of an oasis in the desert. I do not know what really helped, but I showed great interest in the correspondence.

Time went by. I became stronger in my determination, began to make new plans and act more actively. I had a simple goal: to pull out Steins from the USSR. There were many means and means for this, and I did not even know about their existence when I wrote and received the first letters.

After a year of correspondence, during which some letters still reached the addressees, Katya wrote to me that I could come to Moscow in the summer of 1985 for the international youth festival. In truth, I have been thinking about this trip idea for quite a long time. How could I refuse after she invited me to come? But to get to the USSR at that time seemed to me the same difficult task as to remove Steins from this country.

There were many obstacles. I was 20 years old, and there was little time left to prepare for the trip. A trip to the USSR itself was not an easy task. Even an elementary visa application was a painfully long process. I already had fairly strong ties with the leaders of the movement in defense of Soviet Jews, and they in one voice dissuaded me from an independent trip. I was introduced to an American student so that we could go together, but her plans changed, and in the end I went alone, contrary to advice and strong recommendations not to do so. People called my act stupid, saying that my plans were impossible. Someone even claimed that I put my life in danger.

All tourists visiting the USSR were supposed to go as part of official, organized and managed groups, which were led by guides. These guides were authorized and even obliged to report on each step of the guests, as well as instill in them the required dose of Marxism-Leninism. There were other obstacles. For some reason, my family did not support me. My father dissuaded me from the trip. Maybe he was afraid for me, I do not know. And my brother even declared that I would disgrace my family. But I had to fulfill my mission, and nothing could stop me.

The main problem was financial. A ten-day trip to the USSR cost 2 thousands of dollars. I had no savings. For a poor 2 student, thousands of dollars are the same as a million. Not knowing how, but I decided to raise the money I needed: 50 dollars there, 200 dollars here. I was not very well acquainted with Jewish leaders, but I had already worked as president of the non-profit organization Emory Hillel and gained certain fame there. I also became known in the Atlanta Jewish community as an activist. Slowly but surely, I began to turn to various people and organizations - and the money began to flow.

Raising funds for a trip to the Soviet Union, I thought it would be most logical to turn to my close friends. My friends and classmates were as poor as me. But I, to the horror of my father and mother, turned to the parents of my friends and the friends of my parents for help. I achieved some success, but my father did not like the fact that I was asking for money from his friends. So we made a deal. He will give me the missing funds for the trip, and I will leave his friends alone. Instead of giving other people the opportunity to invest in my humanitarian mission (this was exactly the kind of trip I thought), my father became the main shareholder in an enterprise in which he was not at all interested.

Preparing for the trip, I joked with friends that they would be able to write to me in the gulag, or that I would open the first Soviet order of my brotherhood in Siberia. In this country, the law was like a mobile target, and I was advised to take extreme caution and not even cross the street in the wrong place, in order not to undergo deportation or something worse. To say that I was nervous would be an understatement.

While preparing for the trip, I was much more worried that I could break American law. This idea stuck in my brain before Katya invited me to come. Of course, it was very interesting to visit the USSR, but the point was not to come simply as a tourist. I wanted to take out Steins. If not along with me on the return flight, then soon after my trip. It was naive and stupid, but that was my goal.

A few months before the trip, I read the autobiography of Abbie Hoffman. In it, he described his life as a fiery activist, an opponent of the Vietnam War and the leader of the radical yippi movement. He repeatedly violated the law, was arrested, and eventually he had to hide in order to avoid a long prison sentence. Hoffman taught me "partisan theater," as he called acts of civil disobedience, the main principle of which was to act according to conscience and be ready to answer for the consequences.

I also learned some lessons from my family history. My relatives left Eastern Europe in "legal" ways - by entering into a bogus marriage. Thanks to this fictitious marriage, my grandmother and her two sisters escaped Hitler's hell. Well, if they took advantage of it, then I can take advantage of it. I decided to marry Katya, having entered into a marriage in the Soviet registry office, and then do everything necessary to take my “wife” out of the USSR, using the highest legal, diplomatic and political channels for this.

I learned that there is a large fine and even a prison sentence for entering into marriage with the sole purpose of securing American citizenship for the spouse. I was thinking about how marriage (albeit fictitious) to a woman from the USSR will affect my social life. I also thought that I would not be able to free Katya and find myself behind bars. But in the end, I still decided to take a chance.

My parents took me to the airport and I got on a Finnair plane flying to Helsinki, from where I intended to get to Moscow. I can’t even imagine what was going on in their hearts when I flew to a dangerous place on the edge of the world where it would be impossible to contact me. On the way to Helsinki, I wrote postcards to my friends, drawing in the corner a window with a prison bars and with the caption "View from my room." So I killed time and calmed my nerves.

In Moscow, I met Americans from my travel group. They were very different people: a woman with two teenage children; Judge Charlie from Louisiana, who became my roommate; two Jewish couples from New York (I ultimately told them about the purpose of my trip) and many others.

Our guide from Intourist Natasha did everything possible to maintain order and discipline - for the sake of our "safety and pleasure." She was particularly annoyed by my frequent absences from the group, since most of the time I traveled alone. I am sure: she knew what I was doing, and I knew that I knew that she knew. Nevertheless, I did what I thought was necessary, skipping excursions on the subject of Soviet history. I ran around on business, leaving my own tags on the pages of Jewish history. Looking back, I can say: my amazing self-confidence and equally good luck helped me to travel around Moscow and Leningrad on my own, not to get lost and not to go to jail.

I bought a new notebook and filled it with real and fictitious names. I invented a code that helped me understand who I should see, where they live and how to get to them. As I traveled alone, they gave me the names of relatively safe people, about whom there were no particular suspicions that they were being watched, or that they themselves were informants. I strictly followed all the rules in order to safely, calmly and imperceptibly contact with these people, get to them without attracting attention to myself, and also understand whether they are following me or not. I was told that it was necessary to call from public telephones, which seem to be less likely to listen. I was also advised to take more American coins that are the same size as Soviet kopeks. It was possible to call them from telephone booths, since it was very difficult to get a penny in the USA, and searches for kopecks in the USSR could arouse suspicions among people I really didn’t want to contact. I tried as far as possible to ride the subway. In order not to stand out from the crowd, I wore boring gray clothes. I tried to check if they were following me, although it was clear to me that if the KGB wanted to secretly follow me, he would do it.

But the main purpose of my trip was to visit Steins. Unfortunately, because of the youth festival, there were few places in Moscow hotels, and our stay in the capital was reduced by one day. I had only three days and two nights to carry out my plan. And I did not waste time in vain.

On the first evening in Moscow, I called Katya and made an appointment for her the next day. Having said something to Natasha, in the morning I went to the subway and drove to the last station in the north of Moscow. I got to the place without asking anyone for directions. I learned to read a little Russian, so as not to get lost. I tried not to consider too carefully the beautiful old metro stations in the center of Moscow, so as not to stand out. The subway trains were old and unremarkable. It seemed that no one was smiling or showing any emotion. I tried to mix with the crowd and not look people in the eye. I have been to many subways, but this train seemed especially shaky to me. He thundered and pounded until I noticed that I was still shaking even when the train stopped at the stations. A few minutes later I realized that it was not the train that was shaking me, but my heart was beating furiously. Nevertheless, I got to the last station, but I was much late for a meeting with Katya.

It was a miracle. I got off the train, and Katya was still standing there, waiting for me. We immediately recognized each other, embraced and went to her house. We walked slowly, so as not to attract too much attention, as we spoke in English. Victor was waiting for us in the apartment, and we spent some time there. The conversation was easy, relaxed, but nothing substantial. For a long time we felt like quite close people, but in fact, we absolutely did not know each other.

Almost everything I brought with me, except for clothes and some food, was meant for Steins. It was women's clothing and shoes, photographic equipment, books, jewelry and many other things for which I could be arrested at customs. I handed them gifts that I partially bought myself, and partially received from other people. They could use some things themselves, but they could sell something on the black market. Victor was so shocked by these gifts that he called me Santa Claus.

Then we sat down to drink tea, and I shared my idea with them. Victor was sitting at the table opposite me, and Katya was on the left. I unexpectedly shared the idea of ​​marriage for them and tried to prove why this idea is so good. I didn’t tell me what problems might be waiting for me, as they had enough of their own problems. There was no answer. But soon after, Katya and I went for a walk in the park, and she admitted that she was very dissatisfied with her life and wanted to leave. But at the same time, her family is dear to her, and she cannot imagine how she will leave without them. Moreover, it is possible that she will not see them anymore. She was horrified by the thought that she would be alone in a foreign country. But at the same time, she was unhappy that she could never get out of the USSR. We agreed that we would think and then decide whether we could do it if necessary.

Before leaving, I gave Kate a big envelope. There was an application for admission to Emory University, where I was in my junior year. I explained that if she filled it out and brought me the next day, I would take the application with me and try to get her to be accepted to an American college. Soviet dissidents like Andrei Sakharov were conferred in absentia by honorary doctoral degrees, but not a single Soviet refusal had ever been accepted into American universities, at least, as far as I knew. I myself, before entering college, wrote an essay and attached it to the application. This essay was about Steins and Soviet Jews. I had the feeling that they accepted me at Emory because of this. Now it was time for the university to get involved in the process of rescuing Katya. American schoolchildren are usually drawn to the last with their applications for admission, but Katya met me the next day on Red Square and showed papers that were in perfect order. We parted without much emotion, so as not to attract attention, not knowing whether we would see each other again, and if so, when and where.

When I returned home, I began to fight even more actively for Steins in particular, and for Soviet Jews in general. My actions aimed at ensuring that Katya gained her freedom and was accepted at Emory became more and more noticeable, and I had a certain authority at the university. I initiated the publication of several telephone conversations with Katya, and together with other students I began to spread information about Soviet Jews, so that they would receive more support. It was not easy, because it was necessary to order a phone call in the USSR in advance, and the Soviet operator always acted on his own. And when I called, I realized that all calls of this kind were tapped by Soviet censors.

With the help of inexpensive electronics, we recorded these telephone conversations, and then transmitted them at public events in the presence of dozens of people, including representatives of the media. Thanks to the university newspaper, Katya gained fame, and because of my activity they gave me the nickname “Soviet Iona”. After some time, Katya was accepted into Emory University, and she became "a student in a special position." And I got the opportunity to expand my activities.

Using the example of Abby Hoffman, I began to participate in public protests and organize them. I traveled around the country with speeches, I told people about the difficult fate of Soviet Jews, calling them to action. Many responded to my calls. I managed to collect many books of Jews of Silence by Elie Wiesel, distributing them as a gift to event organizers. Hillel and other organizations have noted my activity with awards and invitations to new speeches. My presentations were pretty simple. I showed slides of the people I met and talked about their personal struggles and difficulties. I usually ended my speeches with a story about Kate and about her family, about our plans to marry. At the same time, I desperately hoped that someone would join me in my efforts.

At this time, I regularly wrote articles, letters to the editor, often using a pseudonym. Although there was no Internet yet, I didn’t want the Soviets to know who was the instigator of all this activity, as this could have prevented me from going back to the USSR at the right moment. I also compiled a unique list of the telephones of most Soviet embassies in different countries of the world. As a student, I studied day and night. I had such a theory that at any time of the day or night somewhere the Soviet Embassy works. I developed a ritual that turned into a hobby: calling the embassies at the expense of the called subscriber and introducing myself to the names of famous Soviet Jewish prisoners (Anatoly Sharansky, Iosif Begun, Ida Nudel, Yuli Edelstein and others). Usually they refused to answer the call and hung up, but the signal was still given. Sometimes I shouted to the operator on the line in Russian: “Release my people!” This was also a signal. Several times the embassy clerks unknowingly answered, and I asked to be connected with the most important diplomat present. After that, I politely asked when they would release one or another Jewish prisoner (at that moment they had no idea that the call was at their expense, and therefore I was in no hurry to hang up). Or I just yelled in Russian: “Let go of my people!” And stopped talking.

The apotheosis of this telephone hooliganism came during the Soviet-American summit in Icelandic Reykjavik. In the middle of the night, I called the Soviet embassy there. The person who picked up the phone accepted the call at the subscriber’s expense. Considering that all the important Soviet leaders were there, I said that I wanted to talk with the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin. The unsuspecting clerk said the ambassador was at the hotel. I asked which one, and asked for his phone number. Then I called again at the expense of the called subscriber. At the hotel I was connected to the ambassador’s room, and I was answered by a sleepy Dobrynin. Before letting him fall asleep again, I said my favorite one in my not-so-pure Russian: “Let go of my people!”

My college studies were almost over, and Katya and her family could not leave the USSR. Therefore, I decided that it was time to go to Moscow again and implement the plan with my marriage. By that time, I had acquired useful connections and quickly collected the necessary documents and funds for the trip. Previously, people thought that I was a naive radical activist, but now many have seen what I do and believed that if someone can make it happen with marriage, then only me, and no one else.

Around this time, an unfamiliar married couple from Atlanta by the name of Cohen visited the USSR, and on her return wrote about her trip in the Atlanta Jewish Times newspaper. I was so interested in their story that I wrote them a long letter in which I told about myself, about what I was doing, and asked them to help me go back to the USSR to get married. The Coens called me, we met, and they promised their full support. This couple helped me, and I was able to go to Moscow.

When I was preparing for the second trip, the situation in the USSR began to change. The era of glasnost and perestroika began, while the Jews and the rest received hope. Now I could travel alone, without a group and without a guide. With the assistance of the Coens, I met a man of my age, and we planned this trip together. The details of where we visited and with whom we met are the topic of a separate article. But we personally saw that the liberation of Soviet Jewry began. We arrived in Moscow when the Jews celebrate Yom Kipur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah. We have new friends, and we met with old ones. We took part in a meeting with the then Chief Prosecutor of the State of New York and became acquainted with the real hall of fame of the objector. We also met Ida Nudel literally an hour after she received permission to emigrate, and became the first foreigners to hear this news. Our meeting was interrupted several times by phone calls from Jewish leaders from all over the world, and then a crying sister from Israel called her. After that, we took a taxi with her to the main Moscow synagogue at the beginning of the Yom Kipur festival.

But the main purpose of the trip was to marry Kate, or at least the beginning of this process. But that did not happen. When I was preparing for the trip, Katya wrote me a letter telling that they would be able to leave soon. In July, 1987, Kate called my parents from Italy, finally finding freedom. In my thoughts I imagined this countless times, but when I heard about the departure of Kati, I could not believe it. I just had no words. A lump appeared in his throat, and his eyes filled with tears. Everything I did seemed impossible, but it was like a dream. And I was scared that I would suddenly wake up and find out that it was not real.

While the Steins lived in Italy in anticipation of the status of refugees, I made my second trip to the USSR in October. In November, when there was Thanksgiving, Katya called my parents again, this time from Boston. We immediately phoned and decided to meet. By that time, we were already friends with experience, although, by a strange coincidence, we met one-on-one. Anticipation of a new meeting with Katya, who finally became free, occupied my thoughts no less than the previous plans for her release.

By happy coincidence or by the will of heaven, a few weeks before Steinov’s arrival in the United States, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had scheduled another summit meeting with President Ronald Reagan, this time in Washington. The entire Jewish community in the United States came into motion and organized demonstrations, in which 250 thousands of people took part across the country, as well as in Israel and other countries. Katya and I decided that we would meet at this event.

She wanted to come to Washington from Boston with her father and a family friend. I intended to fly from Atlanta. We agreed on a meeting place and with the help of cell phones we somehow managed to find each other in the crowd. Katya and Victor became celebrities among the delegation from Atlanta. Most of its members have known about her and my activities for several years, and were glad to meet her in person. Instead of going to the altar together, we joined hands and went in the ranks of the demonstrators, expressing support for those Soviet Jews who had not yet gained their freedom.

Katya was no longer a Soviet Jew. She was free. And it was the right time and place for our new meeting. I can not imagine what was going on in her heart. It was a huge part of my life, and she could only watch it, and from far away. Now it was quite difficult for her to understand American society, the community of American Jews and other features of life in the United States. But having gained freedom in the United States, having taken an active part in the action for the liberation of the remaining Jews who remained in the USSR, she was certainly glad. At the same time, many things seemed strange, unfamiliar and even frightening to her. Coming out of the dark shadow of the Kremlin, we stood together in the cold under the bright sun between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, chanting slogans about the liberation of the rest of the Soviet Jews. Then we said goodbye. There were no censors or the KGB.

In the following months we talked quite often. Being a thousand kilometers from Steins, I could not help them much. But there was one thing I could do: get Katie admitted to Emory University so that she could begin her studies. I got her a plane ticket, and at the end of March 1988, she alone flew to Atlanta for meetings and interviews. During her trip, the university’s public relations department made a smart marketing move, and the press followed us everywhere. Local television and newspapers were active; each of them wrote their own story, each looked at what happened from its own angle. For three days, a group of journalists from ABC News followed us everywhere. The story about us should have been shown on Friday evening in a program called Man of the Week. This is what happened. I promised myself that I would use my celebrity status and motivate others even more actively. I achieved my goal, achieved the release of one family, but there was much more to do. Although the Steins were free, in 1987 the permit to leave the USSR was given to less than 900 Jews. But there were still millions who could not leave, and some of them were my friends.

Katya and I have been in touch for several years. But life went on as usual, we got families, started to work, raise children - and called up less often. But Katya and her family occupy an important place in my heart. They are my second family. Fortunately, these are wonderful and intelligent people, and therefore it has always been easy and simple to contact and keep in touch with them.

I was particularly touched to learn that Katya’s husband, also an emigrant from the USSR, served in the American army in Iraq.

Unfortunately, the reality is that you have to pay for the preservation of freedom. Today, many people simply do not know about this chapter in our history, and many have forgotten about it. Abby Hoffman said that you can not believe anyone older than forty years, but I do not agree with that. Today it is very difficult to find people under the age of forty who know what happened at that time, why it is important to this day, how millions of people came to the movement, how Jews and Christians united against historical injustice, and how they accomplished the modern exodus.

Read also on ForumDaily:

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The routine of the miracle: what saved the Soviet Jews and what could save the Jews in the USA

80 years of 'Crystal Night': how the Holocaust began

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