This is not going to be an easy book to summarize…
The subtitle isn't kidding when it says "epic" – this is an account of decades of activism and the oppression the activism was against, an activism that changed the face of the Cold War and may have even helped to bring down the Soviet Union. It's a damned good book, with moments of terrible heartbreak and incredible triumph (although that mostly comes at the end).
There are two sentiments this book brings to mind. The first is from the Passover service, where we (I am Jewish) are reminded that we had to free ourselves from bondage, not wait for the Egyptians to free us. The second is from Babylon 5, which tells that if we don't create our own future, somebody else will create it for us.
So, let's set the scene: it's not easy to imagine what it is like to live in a repressive society like the Soviet Union. The KGB were everywhere. Just meeting in a private residence to discuss dissent could lead to arrest, torture, and imprisonment under the charge of "defaming" the regime. Any literature critical of the regime is contraband, and possession of it could lead to imprisonment. And, to top it off, anybody could be an informer. If you happen to be one of the three million Soviet Jews, things are even worse.
As the book begins, Stalin has died. Every citizen of the Soviet Union has an internal passport, the fifth line of which is "Nationality." If one happens to be a Jew, that line reads "Jewish," and you are treated as an outsider. Many universities and career opportunities are closed to you. If you travel outside of the city of your residence permit, you are followed by the KGB. Your history is erased – the centrality of Judaism to the Holocaust is denied (the victims are just "Soviet citizens"), the local history of your community or people is not to be spoken of under penalty of imprisonment. The Soviet Union does not want you there…but you are NOT allowed to leave.
And this is the crux of the issue. Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the Soviet Union was a signatory, all people have the right to leave their country of origin. The Soviets could not allow this, not least of which because it would suggest that their "workers' paradise" was not perfect after all. The Jews, however, represented a particular threat – they had a place to go, the brand new State of Israel. And if they were allowed to leave the Soviet Union, other national groups might try to do the same.
Most of the book chapters alternate between the Jews in the Soviet Union and the Jewish community in the United States. The Jews in the Soviet Union are developing an identity as Soviet Jews, realizing that they don't belong in the Soviet Union, and trying to leave for Israel, where they can be themselves. The American Jews are seeking redemption for their silence during the Holocaust, finding their voices and learning to become activists for their own community. In the background is Israel, quietly attempting to coordinate the American efforts behind the scenes (and "attempting" is the operative word).
The Soviet side is marked by waves of oppression and resistance to it. The Soviet system had a mechanism for gaining an exit visa on the grounds of family reunification. However, this required the applicant to jump through a number of hoops: they had to receive an invitation from a family member (this would be arranged by Israel), and then they had to get the stamp of approval from their employer (which would almost always result in being fired, which, since unemployment was illegal in the Soviet Union, placed them at risk of imprisonment), and then they had to present their application to the government…at which point they were usually denied anyway. Soviet Jews formed underground groups to circulate contraband, study Hebrew, and try to create an "island" where they could just be Jews. The KGB responded with raids and arrests.
In America, the Jewish community was split between established community groups who were content to make general statements, and grassroots movements who wanted to do much more. The overriding question was just how much one should "rock the boat." American Jews were activitists, but most often in other people's causes – they were staunch allies of the Civil Rights Movement (at least until extremists like the Black Panthers turned against them), but advocating for other Jews was not in their comfort zone. To complicate matters, Israel wanted to co-ordinate their efforts, but American Jewish groups didn't appreciate the sometimes heavy-handed approach the Israelis would take.
On both sides, outlandish things would happen. In the Soviet Union, a former Soviet Air Force pilot named Mark Dymshits hatched a plot to escape by hijacking an airplane – all the seats would be bought up by Jews, and they would take control of the plane and force it to land outside of the Soviet Union and hold a press conference (and if the pilots didn't co-operate, he could just fly the plane himself). The larger community of Jewish dissidents (who had become known as "Refuseniks") balked at the idea, and did not participate. This plan did not work, the KGB arrested them, and then they used the plot to crack down on and decimate the dissidents. In America, a Rabbi named Meir Kahane, a man who sometimes thought like a terrorist, and was quite possibly a narcissist, took the path of civil disobedience. His Jewish Defence League (JDL) harassed Soviet diplomats, practiced throwing pipe bombs into a swimming pool, held both violent and non-violent protests, and single handedly set back detente. He became one of the vocal faces of the movement to save Soviet Jewry, and even managed to unite it with two words: "Never again." He would have become a major leader of the movement if his JDL hadn't escalated to bombing and killed somebody, forcing him to flee to Israel.
The interaction between the two groups changed the face of the Cold War. Initially human rights were not on the table in detente – it was all about military de-escalation. However, dissident Jews in the Soviet Union would collect information on human rights abuses, which would then be passed to the west and used to fuel American advocacy. The American Jews found their voice, and through lobbying got human rights on the table. Soviet Jewry became the poster child for the human rights abuses by the Soviet Union, and Congress attached their plight to economic aid for the Soviets – if the Soviets wanted to buy American technology or grain, it would have to meet a quota of Jews allowed to leave. When the Soviets thought they could gain something in detente, the repression on Soviet Jews eased and exit visas increased. The moment they thought they couldn't, the visas decreased and the KGB went into action.
This caused problems for Israel. Israel had a tiny population, and it saw Soviet Jewry as its "secret weapon" – a large population of Jews who could bolster their own. But increasing numbers of Soviet Jews opted to go somewhere else. Most of these "drop outs" went to the United States. This caused a major rift between Israel and the American Jewish community – the Israelis wanted to ensure that exiting Soviet Jews went only to Israel, while the American Jews were offended at the idea of there being a lack of choice.
This is already a long summary, and there's a lot more that one could cover. But, it's the final victory that I want to finish with, because it changed the world. Once Mikhail Gorbachev came into power, he realized that the Soviet Union could no longer afford to continue as it had – the centralized economy had been floundering for years, and concessions from the Americans had become so tied to human rights that repression had to be reduced. So, the Refuseniks were allowed to leave. Those imprisoned for "crimes" such as organizing the teaching of Hebrew were released. And, as had been feared back in the 1950s, this started the breakup of the Soviet Union as other national groups decided that they wanted to leave too. The vast majority of Refuseniks who left for Israel during this period were scientists and engineers (these were safe professions for Jews in the Soviet system), turning Israel into a major player in science and technology. As for the Refuseniks, who had been imprisoned and lived in fear for decades, they couldn't believe they had won. Right to the very end as the Soviet system collapsed, they thought that another wave of oppression was right around the corner.
This was an amazing book. There are parts that hard to read – learning about the sheer inhumanity of the Soviet system is not a comfortable experience. But, it also reveals a part of the Cold War that is all too often missed in the arms treaties and nuclear de-escalation, when human rights became a central issue of detente and the Jewish community discovered it had a voice and could advocate for itself.
Highly recommended.
by Robert_B_Marks