This is an article from the January 22, 1971 edition of the B’nai Brith Messenger about the impact of the Leningrad hijacking trials on Israeli youth. The article reports unprecedented support of Soviet Jewry after the trial and protests at the Kotel (Western Wall) in support of the dissidents. It also says that Soviet Jews who had immigrated to Israel were taking part in a hunger strike to support the hunger strikers in Russia. According to the article, Israeli young people were impressed with the fortitude of those on trial, the support of the people in the courtroom, and the Chanukah greetings sent by those on trial to the people of Israel. The article ends by saying that both the Russian Jews on trial and those participating in protests and hunger strikes at the Kotel were reminiscent of their parents’ struggles to establish the State of Israel. The Soviet Jewry movement motivated Israeli youth to work together on a common cause.
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Operation Wedding – Leningrad Hijacking - Operation Wedding was a plot devised in 1970 by a group of 16 Refuseniks to hijack a plane and land in Sweden en route to Israel. The KGB arrested the plotters before they reached the flight, and they were tried for high treason. Initially, the organisers, Eduard Kuznetzov and Mark Dymshits, received a death sentence, and the others, including Silva Zalmanson, Kuznetzov’s wife, and Yosef Mendelovitch, received long prison sentences. Following international protest, the sentences were reduced and the death sentences were commuted to prison terms. Despite the failure of the hijacking attempt, it managed to draw international attention to the plight of Soviet Jews and the violation of human rights in the USSR.
Soviet Jewry Movement – The Soviet Jewry movement refers to the activities of Jews in the United States, Europe, and Israel to pressure the Soviet Union to allow Jews to immigrate to Israel. This movement began as a grassroots movement in the United States, led by students and housewives, but within a short time many more joined the movement and they even succeeded in enlisting large Western governments to protest the plight of Soviet Jews, as a human rights issue, whenever they met with Soviet officials. The movement’s slogan, taken from the book of Exodus, was “Let My People Go,” and it was used in demonstrations and rallies that took place around the world, culminating in the 1987 March on Washington when a quarter of a million people rallied in Washington, DC before the Reagan-Gorbachev summit. Throughout this period and continuing after the collapse of the Soviet Union, over one million Russian Jews left the Soviet Union, with most of them immigrating to Israel. Some well-known Russian emigres are Natan Sharansky, Ida Nudel, Yuli Edelstein, and Sergey Brin, Google co-founder.
B’nai Brith Messenger – The B’nai Brith Messenger was a Jewish newspaper published in Los Angeles, California from 1897–1995. It was named after the largest Reform congregation in Los Angeles and was published twice a month until the 1920s when it became a weekly publication. The newspaper chronicled a period of tremendous growth in the Los Angeles Jewish community.
