"We Are Jews Again" : Jewish Activism in the Soviet Union

450 Pages·2017·35.67 MB·English

by  Yuli Kosharovsky

“We Are JeWs AgAin”
Modern Jewish History
Henry Feingold, Series Editor
Select titles in Modern JeWish History
Assimilated Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1940–1943
Katarzyna Person
Bundist Counterculture in Interwar Poland
Jack Jacobs
The Children of La Hille: Eluding Nazi Capture during World War II
Walter W. Reed
The Downfall of Abba Hillel Silver and the Foundation of Israel
Ofer Shiff
Judah L. Magnes: An American Jewish Nonconformist
Daniel P. Kotzin
Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story
Maxim D. Shrayer
“Silent No More”: Saving the Jews of Russia, the American Jewish Effort,
1967–1989
Henry L. Feingold
Will to Freedom: A Perilous Journey through Fascism and Communism
Egon Balas
“We Are Jews Again”
Jewish Activism
Soviet Union
in the
Yuli Kosharovsky
Translated by Stefani Hoffman
Edited by Ann Komaromi
With a Foreword by Joshua Rubenstein
Syracuse University Press
On the cover: Refuseniks celebrate Succot with Israeli sportsmen in Lunts Meadow
outside Moscow, 1975. First row, seated, from left: Anatoly Sharansky, Zeev Shakhnovsky,
Ephraim Rosenstein (child), Yuli Kosharovsky. Second row: Isakhar Aharoni, Michael
Bronstein, Menachem Berkowitz, Shlomo Fried. Back row, standing: Rami Miron,
unidentified, Solomon Stoliar, Zeev Rom, Vladimir Slepak, Maria Slepak, Vitaly Rubin,
Lev Gendin, Oksana Iablonsky. Collection of Inna and Yuli Kosharovsky.
Copyright © 2017 by Syracuse University Press
Syracuse, New York 13244-5290
All Rights Reserved
First Edition 2017
17 18 19 20 21 22 6 5 4 3 2 1
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
ISBN: 978-0-8156-3500-0 (hardcover) 978-0-8156-3519-2 (paperback)
978-0-8156-5400-1 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kosharovskiĭ, I︠︡Uliĭ, author. | Hoffman, Stefani, translator. | Komaromi, Ann,
editor.
Title: We are Jews again : Jewish activism in the Soviet Union / Yuli Kosharovsky ;
translated by Stefani Hoffman ; edited and with an introduction by Ann Komaromi ;
with a foreword by Joshua Rubenstein.
Description: First edition 2017. | Syracuse, New York : Syracuse University Press, [2017]
| Series: Modern Jewish history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
| Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher;
resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017014308 (print) | LCCN 2017014992 (ebook) | ISBN 9780815654001
(e-book) | ISBN 9780815635000 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780815635192
(pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Zionism—Soviet Union. | Jews—Soviet Union—Biography. |
Refuseniks—Biography. | Political prisoners—Soviet Union—Biography. |
Dissenters—Soviet Union—Biography. | Civil rights—Soviet Union. |
Kosharovskiĭ, I︠︡Uliĭ.
Classification: LCC DS149.5.S6 (ebook) | LCC DS149.5.S6 K68 2017 (print) |
DDC 305.892/40470904—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014308
Manufactured in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to those who devoted their lives to our freedom:
Enid Wurtman, Stuart Wurtman, Glenn Richter,
Michael Sherbourne, Adele and Joel Sandberg, Pamela Cohen,
Connie and Joseph Smukler, Shirley Goldstein, Lynn Singer,
Irene Manekofsky, Barbara Stern, Lana and Bernie Dishler,
Sir Martin Gilbert, Jeffrey Tigay, Shirley and Alan Molod,
Marvin Verman, Frank Brodsky . . .
and hundreds of others.

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword, JoshuA rubenstein xiii
Author’s Acknowledgments xix
Editor’s Acknowledgments xxi
Note on the Text and Russian Names xxv
PArt one: History from the Ground Up
1. Soviet Jews: Making History
Ann KomAromi 3
PArt tWo: Voices of the Movement
2. Beginnings 21
3. Context and Strategies 90
4. Developments and Divisions 177
5. Legalization and Mass Aliya 249
Appendix A
Soviet and Post-Soviet Jewish Emigration 323
Appendix B
Major Events and Anti-Zionist Trials 325
Notes 337
Bibliography 373
Index 381

Illustrations
1. Early Prisoners of Zion, Dubrovlag labor camp, Mordovia 82
2. Refuseniks in Sverdlovsk 82
3. Yuli Kosharovsky, 1973 83
4. At the Summer Universiade, refuseniks hold up a sign to welcome
the Israeli delegation 83
5. Hebrew teachers, Moscow 84
6. Seeing off Marianna and Boris (Baruch) Ainbinder, along with
Valentina and Dan Roginsky 84
7. Refuseniks celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day 85
8. Aliya activists in Moscow, 1975 85
9. Refuseniks meet with Israeli sportsmen 86
10. Refuseniks and Israeli sportsmen celebrate Succot together 86
11. Avital Sharansky and Elie Wiesel address a Soviet Jewry program in a
Montreal synagogue 87
12. Yuli Kosharovsky, Inna Kosharovsky, and Leonid (Ari) Volvovsky
with musicians and refuseniks 87
13. Ida Nudel and Dina Beilin wearing necklaces with hidden Jewish
symbols 88
14. Yuli Kosharovsky and Igor Abramovich 88
15. Inna Kosharovsky, Enid Wurtman, and Yuli Kosharovsky with Yuli’s
Hebrew teaching aids 89
16. Aliya activists in Moscow, October 1976 89
17. Refuseniks celebrating Simhat Torah 169
18. Professor Alexander Lerner, former Prisoner of Zion Yuri Berkovsky,
and Anatoly Sharansky 169
ix