March is coming. This year, it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Exodus of Soviet Jews from the kingdom of the Red Pharaoh. To mark the occasion, commemorative rallies, gatherings, meetings, symposia, and seminars are being held all over the world. Due to coronavirus safety requirements, all of this is taking place via remote Zoom communication, a sort of private internet conversation among a narrow circle of select participants. This opens up unprecedented room for a torrent of personal fabrications, falsifications, and myth-making. When Boris Gulko writes in the online newspaper “Kontinent” (from February 22, 2021) that “the Jewish revolution in the USSR was (started) on June 15, 1970, by 14 Jews with two Slavs who joined them,” you can catch him in the act and point out his ignorance. When the same statement is made at a private Zoom gathering, it sinks into the subconscious and becomes a fact of historical self-identity. That is why written, firsthand testimonies that occasionally appear in internet samizdat (mass distribution via email) are so interesting and essential. Below are a few such documents (taken from internet samizdat) that may be of interest to you.
Yulia Viner
The Group of Twenty-Four
On the morning of that day—February 24, 1971—I woke with a heavy feeling. Something difficult and unpleasant lay ahead of me that day. With a mental effort, I tried not to remember what it was and decided to go back to sleep. I pulled the covers over my head—and remembered with perfect clarity.
No, I won’t go! screamed a categorical protest within me. I won’t go, I don’t have to, no one is forcing me. I won’t go, they’ll get along just fine without me there. I won’t go, I’m scared, and this is all meaningless, it won’t do any good, just risk… And it could affect my family, I have no right… no, I won’t go. I’d rather sleep.
I rode the metro, pretending to myself that I wasn’t going there at all. But when I came out onto the street and saw the massive, dark building of the Lenin Library, I finally woke up completely and walked straight ahead—to my destination. It was as if someone were pulling me on a rope—yet no one was pulling me, no one had persuaded me, and I myself didn’t want to go. Strange, isn’t it?
My destination was the reception office of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Yulia Viner. Photo from 2013.
I am about to describe an event that has been told and retold more than once—mostly by those who weren’t participants. With pathos, with heroism, with lofty Zionist ideals. So why do I want to talk about it again? I have no intention of debunking myths. It’s unlikely I’ll be able to add anything substantially new, at least from a grand historical perspective. However, very little in life actually unfolds on a grand scale. It is only in retrospect, looking back, that we willingly or unwillingly inflate the significance of ourselves, of others, and of the entire event. The event was, of course, of no small importance to me, but over time, the pathos has greatly dissipated from it, and the heroism has begun to appear in a somewhat different light.
For me, this event remains in my memory not as a stage of the Jewish liberation movement, but as my own personal experience, on a small, personal scale. With all the minor and insignificant details that accompanied it, which are what keep it in my memory not as something fossilized in the amber of history, but as something alive and real.
Nevertheless, before writing about our sit-in at the reception office of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in February of 1971, I tried to secure a reliable testimony about it, one recorded in the immediate aftermath. My own testimony. Given by me to state security officers shortly after my arrival in Israel. The officers were young, pleasant, and spoke poor Russian. But they questioned me meticulously, as very little was yet known here about Soviet Jewish life, and their understanding of Zionist activities often made me laugh. Or maybe they did it on purpose; perhaps those were their professional techniques. Nevertheless, I answered willingly, even with fervor—after all, these weren’t malicious KGB agents, but our own, dear security services.
Those records were classified and remain so to this day. I was unable to obtain them. So I will have to rely on my own, not always reliable, memory.
First and foremost, I want to note what I remember with certainty. What our protest was not.
In some places, particularly on the internet, there is repeated talk of a “seizure” of the Supreme Soviet’s reception office by a group of Zionist Jews. I feel it necessary to dismiss this immediately. A “seizure” implies violence, weapons, a struggle. There was no question of a seizure. We simply came and sat down.
According to other sources, it was a “hunger strike” in the reception office of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. It sounds dramatic, but it was by no means a hunger strike. I myself had half a pack of cookies in my pocket. Someone else, I think, had sandwiches. Not to mention that the whole event lasted barely half a day. You can’t starve that much in such a short time, though you certainly get hungry.
But it was indeed a sit-in. Although here too—why, exactly, a “strike”? To strike, from the word *basta*, means to stop doing something, most often work. We were not “striking” at all; most of us were already unemployed. Twenty-four Soviet citizens with “Jew” marked in their passports gathered in the reception office of the Supreme Soviet, brought a petition to the authorities demanding the legal regulation of the emigration procedure to Israel, and requested a meeting with the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Podgorny. And they declared that they would not leave the reception office until they received an answer. There was no strike; it would be more accurate to call it a demonstration—a demonstration of our resolve.
And there was resolve, that’s true. Many of the participants had already received a refusal of their exit visa applications. Including me. True, the time I had spent “in refusal” was insignificant, three or four months at most. But I knew that I had little staying power, that I couldn't endure a long wait and would either do something desperate or give up the idea of leaving altogether.
I had already nearly participated in one desperate act. Fortunately, its initiator called it off in time. Otherwise, it would have inevitably become another “Airplane Affair,” or possibly worse.
He had planned to take a few people, sneak into the Sevastopol port, hijack a military cutter, and sail to Turkey. I was ready to join him. I, of course, had no idea how unrealistic such a plan was or how great the dangers were. But I trusted Fima Fainblum, our leader, completely. He was (and is) a reserved man with gentle manners and a quiet voice, but he was brave and decisive. Stubborn, too. While trying to get permission to leave for Israel, he was simultaneously fighting to be reinstated in the Party, from which he had been expelled immediately after submitting his application. Why did he even need that? For justice. For legality. Out of stubbornness!
Now F.F. is a successful entrepreneur. A businessman. Or maybe he’s already retired. I know for sure that he’s a grandfather. I find it hard to imagine him in any of these roles; I haven’t seen him in a long time. I remember a dynamic, thin, handsome man with a mustache.
He was one of the initiators of our protest, just as impatient as I was, only incomparably more experienced and respected.
The second was much calmer and more methodical. A great deal has been written about him, and now his name, in the natural course of things, is beginning to be forgotten, especially since he has been gone for more than thirty-five years. I think I can permit myself to name him. If I get anything wrong, he was not a petty man; he would have forgiven me, I think. His name is starting to become a legend, and it is permissible to embroider one’s own patterns onto that canvas, as many have done without any ceremony. But I will do so cautiously, though likely not entirely accurately either. Such is the fate of legends.
Meir Gelfond. This man inspired both admiration and awe in me. Admiration, because he was both intelligent and sensible, and also loved classical music, and, by all accounts, was a very good doctor. And awe—because of the heroic past behind him. A labor camp, long-term Zionist activism. I tend to be wary of heroes, especially those who acknowledge this quality in themselves. He had none of that heroism. What he did have was Zionism. As a character trait. Stubborn, consistent, fanatical. Right from childhood. At fourteen, the boy was already a member of a Zionist circle! I think of myself at fourteen… I had never even heard of Zionism, and my Jewishness was just an annoying source of trouble.
Along with admiration and awe, this man also evoked a certain fear in me. Fanaticism of any kind has always repelled me. I had met plenty of Zionist fanatics; they didn’t frighten me, only annoyed and sometimes amused me. The blinders on their eyes annoyed me, and their high self-esteem combined with deep ignorance amused me. Meir Gelfond was not like that. He was too significant a figure to be annoying, let alone amusing. A certain narrowness of views and interests is inevitable for a fanatic, but he could not be accused of ignorance. For this man, Zionism was turning into a profession, a goal, whereas for me it was merely a means to get to Israel. I only became a real Zionist in Israel, by which time it had practically gone out of fashion here.
These two legendary figures, Fima Fainblum and Meir Gelfond, were the main driving forces behind our protest (perhaps there were others, but I didn’t know them). I remember heated debates about this plan. Was it the right moment or not? How risky was it? Could it yield results, or would it harm the entire movement? Who would go, whom to invite. And I listened and thought, just let them agree, just don’t let them cancel it…
That was before. And now I was approaching the beautiful doors of the reception office with terror in my soul. And with the hope that they simply wouldn’t let me in. And I could return home with a clear conscience.
At the doors, I met two or three of my comrades. Everyone greeted each other joyfully and cheerfully, and I greeted them just as cheerfully. The terror quickly sank to the bottom. I couldn’t show it. The others weren’t afraid! Let them think I wasn’t afraid either.
We entered without any trouble; the guards at the door barely glanced at our passports. No one even dreamed of searches with electronic wands and walking through metal detectors back then. Those were carefree, terror-free times!
That’s it, I’m inside, no more excuses or pretexts. It’s too late to retreat. And shameful.
A spacious foyer with a clerk at a desk, and from there an entrance to the hall, the reception area itself. A large hall, with people sitting tightly packed along the walls. All with some kind of complaints, statements, and petitions. Each one by themselves, not looking at their neighbors, not talking. Their faces were grim and dejected.
There was no room for us to sit together, so we scattered to different ends of the hall. Gradually, I sought out familiar faces. We began to gather in a small group. No one knew for sure how many people would come. First one arrived, then another. I say “one, another one” because there were only two of us women. Closer to noon, we decided it was time to submit our petition. It had over thirty signatures, not everyone had come, but we decided not to wait for anyone else. As for who exactly held the paper and got in line at the window where petitions were submitted, I can’t say with full confidence. It seems to me that it was Leva Freidin, now Aryeh Gilat (I have since learned for sure that it was he, along with Meir Gelfond, who submitted it). However, there are two or three other contenders. One of them, years later, would say directly: “I stood up, I walked over, I held it out…” Apparently, his memory failed him, which happens—but it’s interesting that it failed in that particular way. Or maybe he just really wanted it to have been that way. And elsewhere, this action is attributed to another person, a fairly well-known writer, about whom I remember for sure that it was not he who submitted it. Memory plays such tricks on us at every turn; this is precisely what I mean when I say the pathos has somewhat dissipated…
In any case, the petition was submitted. And immediately rejected. From the window, the presenters were told: we only accept applications from private individuals here, not group ones, take it back. Those who submitted it did not take it back; the paper remained lying in front of the official. And the official immediately grabbed the phone.
If you look at the matter impartially, our action was prepared rather poorly. Our main protection, the foreign correspondents who were supposed to inform the world about what was happening and thereby restrain the punishing hand of the authorities, received the information late. The timing here had to be precise, down to the minute: radio and television around the world had to report our action not too early, so as not to warn the wrong people prematurely. But early enough so that the authorities would understand that the world knew—before they threw us into the back of military trucks and took us to who-knows-where. For a long time, the scales wavered and tilted against us. We, of course, only found this out later.
And another thing. The action was supposedly prepared under conditions of the strictest secrecy. But no one warned me, for example, not to breathe a word to anyone… So when I met an acquaintance on the street the day before, a fellow Zionist but one I barely knew, I enthusiastically began to recruit him. After asking for details, the acquaintance immediately agreed to join. How could I have known where he would go after we parted? I had heard that many who were invited had refused. That in itself is normal, but this way the circle of initiates kept expanding, and the secrecy was melting away before our eyes…
But miracles happen. The world press did manage to come to our aid at just the right moment. The acquaintance I had met joined us, as promised. Of all the initiates, not a single one—not one!—ran to snitch. It can’t be possible that there wasn’t a single informant among us, can it?! It's just not possible. And yet, our action caught the authorities by surprise. I have since heard a version that it was, in fact, provoked by the authorities themselves. Something about the Soviets wanting to strengthen Israel with active Jewish forces to frighten the Arabs and thus increase the Arab countries’ dependence on the USSR… And so, supposedly, they devised this clever way to do it… I don’t know, maybe there was something to it, but it seems a bit too Byzantine. And besides, would the Arabs really have been so scared by a few dozen, or even a few hundred, additional Israelis? And that there would eventually be hundreds of thousands—I don’t think anyone foresaw that.
And most importantly, I find it hard to believe that such a massive spectacle was staged in advance. As became clear later, hundreds of people from the other side were involved. That was clearly overkill even for the Soviet government, which was so lavish with its human resources. No, I don't believe in the aforementioned version.
We sat and sat, and nothing happened. The petitioners in the hall came and went, quietly submitting their applications; the clerks at the windows quietly said something to them. Overall, it was surprisingly quiet. And in this semi-silence, you could clearly hear telephones ringing all over the huge government palace. There was a distinct feeling that these phones were desperately crying out into space: what should we do? how should we act? give us instructions, urgently!
The hall gradually emptied. By five o'clock, no one was left but us. And we sat there—and told jokes. Some were very funny, and we were roaring with laughter, and then the officers on duty in the foyer would peer into the hall and look at us with incredulous surprise. Everyone was telling them, and I really wanted to tell something too, but as always, I couldn't remember a single joke. What a nuisance! On top of that, my back began to hurt. I already suffered from a chronic spinal condition, and it flared up from the long sitting. Laughter only made it worse. I stood up, walked around, sat down—the pain didn't go away. And no one had any painkillers. They started urging me to go home. But now I didn't want to go home at all. I had already gone through the fear, the worrying—was it all for nothing? Now was the time to continue the protest!
A team of cleaning women burst into the hall—four muscular, middle-aged women with buckets and mops. They started chasing us from place to place, shouting angrily:
“What are you all sitting around for? What do you want? Get out! You’re just getting in people’s way!”
We didn't respond to their words, obediently moving from one wall to another, sitting down again, and continuing to have fun.
“Look at them, cackling! No shame, no conscience. Well, just you wait! You’ll get what’s coming to you!”
The pain in my back grew worse. I took out a cigarette and lit it—it didn’t help. And then I decided to go out and walk to a pharmacy. Everyone approved of my decision, but they were sure I wouldn’t return. But I said I would return, and I had no doubt about it.
I went outside. The first thing I saw to the right of the entrance was a huge, gray-green vehicle. Not a tank, but something like it. I wondered what it was doing here. Where did it come from? And I went to look for a pharmacy. I walked around the building to the left and discovered that a line of gray-green, canvas-covered trucks, tightly packed with armed soldiers, stretched along its entire rear. Some kind of training exercise, I decided.
An exercise? In the city center?
And then an absurd thought flashed through my mind: what if this is for us? It even seemed funny. For us! A regiment of soldiers for us! (I don’t know how many soldiers are in a regiment, but there were clearly several hundred of them). What would they do with us? If they were to remove us from the hall, a police detail would have been enough. No, it's nonsense, this has nothing to do with us. The authorities are fools, of course, but surely not *that* big of fools!
Finally, I found a pharmacy and bought a "pyaterchatka." It's a fairly strong remedy, and luckily, it's sold without a prescription. I swallowed a pill right there, ate a cookie, and went back. As I walked, the pain in my back almost subsided. Along the way, I bought something to eat from a street vendor, either small pies or bagels (some hunger strike!).
Neither my mother nor my brother knew anything about our protest. I hadn’t told them anything, thinking it was safer for them. But now I thought—maybe I should call and warn them after all? What if I disappeared, and they didn’t know anything for a long time, and started to worry, to search for me? But by then, I was possessed by a reckless, baseless confidence that nothing would happen to me. And to call now, before everything was over, would be to make my loved ones suffer needlessly with worry for me. No, I decided, I’ll tell them everything later.
I walked and marveled to myself: how strange a person is. Here before me is a straight, open path home. Just get on the metro and go! I was so scared, so unwilling to go, looking for any excuse not to. And now I have a real excuse, not an imaginary one—my back really is broken and in pain. And I wouldn't be ashamed in front of my comrades; they understood and had insisted I leave themselves. And where am I going? Right back there. And without the slightest hesitation. Especially since my back hardly hurts anymore, and I have the pyaterchatka in my pocket. And, can you believe it, I even feel cheerful!
“Visiting hours are over,” the officer at the entrance told me. Behind him, I could see that the foyer was full of military men, soldiers and officers.
“I know,” I replied. “But I need to go in there. I was just there, I only stepped out for a minute. They’re waiting for me.”
“Waiting? Who?” The officer turned, exchanged a few words with someone inside. “Those people?” he asked, nodding toward the hall.
“Yes.”
“And you want to join them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have to.”
The officer shrugged his shoulders:
“Well, it's your choice. If you want, go ahead.”
And he let me pass. Just like that.
I squeezed past the soldiers. I walked through like a ghost. They looked right through me.
The hall was now clean, empty, and quiet. Only the phones from all sides were still ringing. They were taking a long time to deliberate, they just couldn’t decide!
I was met with joy and astonishment. I told them about the trucks with soldiers.
“They’re for us,” Fima said confidently.
“Come on, you’re kidding.”
“No, I’m serious.”
“To mobilize such forces for us? Are you crazy?”
“For intimidation. To make sure no one else tries it. To make people afraid.”
“Us?”
“Us, and everyone else. What if we have reinforcements prepared, a whole armed force? What if it's hidden somewhere nearby? Or what if—they drag us away, and passersby rush to defend us? And mass riots begin!”
That was another joke; we laughed, but somehow not as merrily anymore.
“I feel sorry for the soldiers,” I said. “They’re being shuttled around for no good reason.”
“You can feel sorry for them, but if they’re ordered to, those soldiers will tear you to pieces.”
The jokes gradually dried up. Well-meaning historians say that while we waited, we read the Bible aloud… Touching. Such authentic Jewish Jews. I don’t recall anything of the sort. Maybe it happened when I went to the pharmacy?
Some general (I’m not an expert on stars, so it might have just been a colonel) looked into our hall from the doorway and strongly suggested we leave the premises. He didn’t speak rudely at all; on the contrary, he confidentially explained to us what an unpleasant fate awaited us. Or rather, he didn’t explain, he spoke in hints, but he made himself clear. We particularly liked it when he said:
“So, why do you need all this? It’s just so much extra trouble for us.”
Someone giggled. The general wanted us to sympathize with him!
“And you're wrong to laugh!” the general said, offended. “For now, you can still leave here freely and go home. But later…”