(Jewish Group) A Letter to Golda: A group of daring Georgian Jews openly asked for freedom
Fifty years ago, the Soviet Zionist movement—which in America is known largely as a “refuseniks” movement—sparked a rebirth of identity unlike anything seen in recent Jewish history. Instead of letting themselves quietly fade away through assimilation—the fate that the Soviet government intended for its Jews—a small but mighty group of activists rediscovered a connection to Jewishness and brought the rest of Soviet Jewry along with it.
For those activists, a pivotal point in their movement came on Nov. 10, 1969. On that day, a number of them gathered secretly in Riga, Latvia, to plan their next steps. Gershon Ben-Oren, who came to the meeting from the republic of Georgia, remembers waking up in his Zionist friends’ apartment and reaching out for the shortwave radio next to his bed. As was his habit back home, he wanted to hear “the voices”—Voice of Israel, Voice of America, and other “hostile” broadcasts.
The news that poured into the apartment gave him a jolt. Eighteen religious Jewish families from the Soviet republic of Georgia, the announcer said, have appealed to the government of Israel and the United Nations with a group letter, asking them to prevail on the Soviet authorities to let them emigrate to Israel. Full names, addresses, and signatures of the heads of the 18 families accompanied the letter. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had read out excerpts from the letter to the Knesset and instructed Yosef Tekoa, Israel’s U.N. representative, to convey it to the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission.
An excerpt of the letter, translated from Russian (Israel National Archive)
The news sent shock waves throughout the Soviet Zionist movement and the Jewish world outside the USSR. It gave a black eye to the Soviet self-image as conveyed by the Soviet propaganda machine that was just then engaged in an elaborate effort to convince the world that Soviet Jews felt no connection to Israel or American Jews, and had no interest in leaving their beloved socialist motherland.
The 18 signatures (From the Elashvili Family Passover Haggadah)
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