My Struggle for Soviet Jewry, and Kate Shtein

The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry was born in 1964. Two years later, Elie Wiesel published The Jews of Silence, giving voice to the story and situation of Jews behind the Iron Curtain who longed to connect to the Jewish people. These catalysts 50 years ago gave momentum to a cause that became unstoppable. In 1967, the Six-Day War stirred a sense of pride among Soviet Jews, one mixed with religious and national awareness that would lead to public trials and consequent imprisoning of emerging leaders among Soviet Jews themselves, which in turn awakened Jewish pride and responsibility among diaspora Jews and others who were aware that, just three decades earlier, far too little was done to save European Jews.

2017 also marks the 30th anniversary of another milestone of the Soviet Jewry movement that had a meaningful impact on the outcome of this struggle. December 1987 saw the largest demonstration on behalf of Soviet Jewry in Washington D.C., with more than 250,000 Jews and Christians raising their voices to pray, and appeal to the USSR for the freedom of Soviet Jews. Sadly, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it’s hard to find someone under 30, or even 40, who knows much if anything about this significant chapter in Jewish history. For me, these events and others leading up to them are both historically significant and deeply personal.

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