12 | APRIL 28 • 2022

PURELY COMMENTARY

mitzvah in June. She thought
he ought to “adopt” a Jewish
boy in the USSR with whom
to share the milestone. In the
end he did, and he (and/or my
mother) wrote to Mikhail in
some distant Soviet province.
Nobody ever heard back from
Mikhail, but plans on our end
in New Jersey went uninter-
rupted, just without the “ben-
efit” of Mikhail necessarily
knowing that a Jewish boy in
New Jersey had “twinned” his
bar mitzvah, or what that even
meant.
I had a different takeaway.
My bar mitzvah had been four
years earlier. I never heard of
the “adopt a Jewish refusenik”
idea then. A refusenik was a
Jewish person who formally
applied through the tightly
controlled Soviet bureaucracy
(which just happened to be
antisemitic) to leave the USSR
and was refused. With refusal
came a series of discriminato-
ry and even legal threats, leav-
ing Jews who stepped forward
wishing to leave marked as
traitors or worse.
Because in 1979 there had
been a relatively large number
of Jews given permission to
leave (yes, they couldn’t just buy
a ticket and go, they actually
needed permission from the
state), a larger number of Jews
applied to leave, hopeful that
they’
d also be given permission.
But when the doors were shut
again, that just left that many
more Soviet Jews in the cross-
hairs of Soviet society, stuck and
branded as refuseniks.
The idea was that by “adopt-
ing” the Soviet Jewish teens,
we were showing solidarity,
we were calling the Soviet
authorities to task, and we
were keeping the families in
the public eye so nothing bad

would happen to them.
So why was this Hadassah
Magazine article so impactful
to me? I honestly felt cheated,
that nobody had given me the
opportunity four years earlier
to twin my bar mitzvah, much
less really even know about
the persecution of Soviet Jews.
Not to be left out, I adopted
a family of my own. Not to
share or twin anything, just to
help them, help raise aware-
ness and be part of a move-
ment that I understood then
was important and historic.

MY SOVIET ‘FAMILY’
My commitment to work to
get my adopted family out
spared no efforts. Though
most were confiscated by the
KGB, I wrote monthly letters
and received a few replies. My
college essay was about my
commitment, basically enlist-
ing any university that would
accept me to be partners in
that. I attended countless
Solidarity Sunday and other
demonstrations.
I went to college, bringing
with me my adopted family,
and got Emory to admit the
oldest daughter, Katya, as a
student in special standing. I
made phone calls to them (not
an easy thing at all consider-
ing they didn’t have a phone
and the KGB monitored all
the phone lines) that were
broadcast publicly, making
her the most famous overseas
student at Emory. I engaged
many others in this cause so
that it was not just me, but a
team. Numerous students and
faculty became involved.
We launched the most
unique petition with each sig-
nature on a single link of what
became a huge paper chain
that I delivered to the Soviet

embassy.
I launched my first fund-
raising campaign ever, $2,000,
to join an official Soviet tour
in July 1985. I was 20, went
to the USSR on my own with
no cell phone (but the com-
puter I brought was another
story). I taught myself to read
Russian so I could get by on
my own, as unnoticed as an
American student could be.
Without the benefit of cell
phones, Google maps or any
other such modern device, I
was able to meet Katya at a
metro station before going to
her home where I gave her an
application to Emory, which
she filled out and brought to
me the next day. Oh, and I
proposed marriage within an
hour of meeting her and her
father, with the scheme (illegal
as it is) to get her U.S. citizen-
ship, use that to get her out of
the USSR, and use that to get
her family out. I already said
crazy, right?
Who knew that two years
later, when I planned my trip
to begin a Soviet civil mar-
riage process, that because
of my activism, they would
already be out of the USSR,
four out of fewer than 900
Jews allowed to leave the
Soviet Union in 1987. The
story attracted attention from
several local and national
media.
None of this is to do any-
thing other than illustrate
how deeply I got involved,
and how that one article was
so transformative, not just
then but still two generations
later. It’s been a significant
two generations because, in
that time, all the Jews of the
former Soviet Union who have
wanted to leave have done
so: another Exodus of no less

significant proportions for the
Jewish people. Also, it’s rare
in this generation that people
not alive then have any under-
standing of the significance
of the persecution of Soviet
Jews, the broad-based global
movement to free them, and
how successful we were. It’s
critical that this history not be
forgotten.
Who knows, maybe some
parent will read this article to
his or her child and it will be
so impactful that it will trans-
form that person to take on
a commitment to Israel and
the Jewish people, when the
threat’s different but no less
real. I look forward to reading
that person’s story 40 years
from now.

Jonathan Feldstein was born and
educated in the U.S. and immigrated
to Israel in 2004. Throughout his
life and career, he has worked to
build bridges and relationships with
Christian supporters of Israel and
shares experiences of living as an
Orthodox Jew in Israel, writing for
many Christian websites, and as the
host of the Inspiration from Zion pod-
cast. He can be reached at
firstpersonisrael@gmail.com.


CORRECTION:
• In “Three Jewish State
Legislators Strive to be
Effective in a Challenging
Environment,” (April 21,
page 26) some of the facts
about State Rep. Samantha
Steckloff were incorrect.
Rep. Steckloff attended
Purdue University, not
Michigan State University.
She worked at Hillel at the
University of Kansas and
the Hillel at the University of
Michigan. Her mother, Vicki
Barnett, is also the current
mayor of Farmington Hills.

40 YEARS SINCE continued from page 4