Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Rav Avi, thank you for being here.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: It's a great pleasure being here.
[00:00:04] Speaker A: It's really, really.
It's great always to have you in our school and what you've done for our community is you're one of my.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Many partners in crime, standing out there speaking truth to power.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: It's a big zechut. It's a big zechut for me. I just go back. I'll go back a little bit in terms of my relationship with Rav Avi, my father, Allah Mashalam, a nice, warm relationship with you. And we're very grateful for that. And first of all, you built a model shul, which now Raf Stephen and his team are running. And it's really a model shul, a model of tolerance and inclusion and accessibility and love and bringing people in. I think the first year of the Ma' orot fellowship that you had, which was pre chovy when I was in Yu Smicha, but this was a program that you had for a lot of yuzmicha guys who were looking to learn about more of the world, more of the Jewish world. And I learned a lot from those days before. And you told me, I'm going to start a program. And of course you did for.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Rabini. I'm so blessed watching the Zayid grow under Rav Stephen.
Everyone should be so blessed to see a continuity. Rav Stephen has taken it to another level. I feel so blessed. And actually, your father, a blessed memory, had a lot to do with the moment when Nathan was freed.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: I remember that Mozei Shabbat, I think. Right.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: His first talk was at the Buyat in America.
And we thought rabbis should participate across the denominations, because the struggle to free Natan was not an Orthodox struggle. It was a Jewish struggle.
It really encompassed everyone.
But there were many Orthodox rabbis who would not stand and read Tehillim, followed by a conservative and Reform and Reconstructionist with my father.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: When I remember that night as a kid, it was 1986. I was, I guess, 15, 16.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: And he continued, your father's rabbinate every step of the way.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Big shoes to fill.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. But it's really an honor to have you here and to really bring in what I hope will be a month of our kids. And that's what this is about, of our kids learning about Natan, about Avital, but really about Cain voice and activism. And there's nobody. You know, this is the third part. I was going to say, by way of introduction, that you're.
You were, and you actually are. Which I'll talk about in a second, you know, an activist rabbi who certainly left his shul plenty to be there. And, you know, my recollections are, you know, I'm from the generation that grew up on Solidarity Sundays. And, you know, you had so much to do with that movement, but not only Solidarity Sunday, but really always being there over the course of decades when, as you just said a minute ago, when there was a need to speak truth, to power or to cry or to show support. And that's, you know, that's an amazing, amazing thing. And I want to just go to last week. Last Thursday was the inauguration of Zoran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City, and that you were going to be out there. And I looked at the weather and I saw it was going to be about 28 degrees. And then, you know, I don't know.
You told me that you had a birthday that was more than 75. So I said, if Ravavi can go out there in the cold, then I can go out there, too. And you said, I think I'm describing it correctly. You said, it's not a Protestant.
It's a statement of we will, and we will, as you said when we were there, we will always stand with Israel. Tell me what you know.
First of all, you know, you personally, and second of all, just the need generally to be out there. It wasn't a very big crowd that we had out there. Why was it important for you to go?
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Recently I was in a dialogue with Rick Jacobs, who heads the Reform movement.
It was actually in Austin where there's a Hovave Rabbi, Dan Milner, and the question we were dealing with was, does one, does a rabbi bring politics into the pulpit?
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: And my response is, I don't.
I don't bring politics into the pulpit. The pulpit, the rabinate, is a place to inspire people.
And in my rabbinate, I feel congregants inspired me and lifted me much more than I did to them.
But there's one exception, and that is if there's going to be someone out there who's an anti Semite, then I'm not going to pull back, because I don't view that as political.
I view that as if somebody is anti Israel, anti Israel's right to a Jewish state, or in Natan's time, if there is a country that says that we're not going to allow Jews to pray, to have matzot on Pesach, we're going to incarcerate and throw into the Gulag Jews whose only crime was being Jews, then it's our responsibility.
Avayifen kovachovayarche enish. It's important to stand up.
And I have a policy. Whenever I see the nation of Israel or the people of Israel facing a challenge, I do this exercise. I replace the word nation with the word family.
For me, the best model of am Israel, the nation of Israel, is the family of Israel. That's why I think reisheet precedes shmot.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Reisheet is about broken families that in the end, come together.
When it comes together, the story of family ends.
Shmot begins, which is the story of nation, which teaches that the best model of nation is family.
And so we were out there and millions of people were involved in the Soviet jewelry movement in the Mamdani case.
This is a man who delegitimizes our right to Israel, who demonizes Israel in the process. He has said terrible things about my grandchildren who are in the army. He said that my grandchildren are involved in all kinds of terrible stuff. He waffles, even on the use of genocide.
And I can't believe, after all these years, Benny, that the mayor of the city of New York will be anti Zionist, anti Israel.
So at the moment when he was taking office, I felt he was undercutting what Israel is all about. He was standing against Israel.
And as a student of spiritual activism, for me, activism is not just activism. It's soulful. I felt there had to be a counter voice of kedusha, of holiness.
We speak against Israel. We always peacefully.
Always peacefully, but with dignity, with strength. With Hadai Yisrael, we were saying, we stand with Israel.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Was it successful?
[00:07:25] Speaker B: I believe it was very successful.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: How do you measure that?
[00:07:28] Speaker B: I measured that because it was the right thing to do.
Hubert Humphrey used to say, when you're out in the public, speak to the cameras. I don't agree with that.
I don't mind if the cameras are there, but I don't do things with the cameras.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: So he is the mayor now, and it's something that we've been concerned about. You know, there was, I think, the pre election and the post election, before the election. I think that much of our community, and I certainly don't want to speak for everybody, but the vast majority of our community was worried and, you know, did what we could to change that outcome without success.
He didn't win by much, but he did. He did win.
What do you think now? I mean, is this a person that you meet with? Do you try to talk to him? Do you try to develop a relationship, you know, based on the kind of, you know, you have to talk to people that you disagree with also. Like, what are the rules around that for you, after so many years?
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Well, for me, I would not talk to him.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: You would not talk to him?
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Even if he invited me to speak to him, I wouldn't talk to him. Because if you're not prepared to talk to the prime minister of Israel, in fact, he has said he's ready illegally, it'll never happen. But he has said he's prepared to arrest the prime minister of Israel.
I'm not talking to him. I'm just not going to become involved in that. However, I do understand the role of others in the Jewish mainstream Jewish establishment in sitting down and speaking to him.
But spiritual activism teaches the concept of symphony and orchestra, that there can be people on the inside who are negotiating and those on the outside who are calling out and speaking truth to power. From that perspective, when one does so always peacefully, never ever using violence as a means of social action, that doesn't weaken the hands of the negotiators, it strengthens the negotiators.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: So these are. You see them as both kind of both groups, so to speak. And this goes back. We could talk about it soon when talk about Sharansky and Soviet Jewry. There are. There were people working within the system and outside the system. You didn't see yourself as competing with them?
[00:09:46] Speaker B: I did see myself as competing with them.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Were there different philosophies of how to get something done?
[00:09:50] Speaker B: I did see myself as competing with them.
And over the years, I've grown to understand that people on the inside, God forbid they weren't the enemy. Without those on the inside, we never would have had the success that we had. We needed that orchestra, we needed the drummers, we needed the Glenn Richters, the Tsaddik of the Soviet Jury movement. Diagonal Birnbaum's the father of the Soviet Jury movement. But the role of the drummer is not to drown out the flautist or the pianist. It's to make that sound even more powerful.
If I'm sitting negotiating with Mamdani, I would turn to him and say, look, the AMRA is very upset with you. We're trying to keep them in check.
The only way you can stop this grassroots movement is you've got to do better. And you've got to do better than your first act in office is to undo armor's definition of anti Semitism, to reintroduce bds.
What an outrage.
BDS against Israel.
Even as, by the way, he says nothing about BDS in China.
80% of China's investments in the United States is in New York in the billions of dollars.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: How do you explain.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: It's hypocritical. It's hypocrisy.
And that double standard is one of Natan's tests for anti Semitism, antisemitism. Natan, who's ingenious, he developed what he calls the 3D test. You can disagree with the Netanyahu government, you can disagree with a Peres government, that's fine.
But when you delegitimize Israel firstly, when you demonize Israel secondly, and you do so with a double standard, you fail that test.
Anti Israelism translates into anti Semitism.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Sure.
Let's go back a week, and then we'll get back to this the week before that. You've been busy over the last month. And Shuli told me the rabbi went to Australia after that terrible, terrible tragedy and crime at Bondi Beach. And then a few days later, you're on a plane, which is not an easy trip. And I'm sure it wasn't easy for you, but I know that you told me it was meaningful for you. Again, tell me the calculus. Right. Australia is the furthest place in the world, and how do you decide to go? Why do you go? When do you go? What's your purpose? What's the calculus?
[00:12:36] Speaker B: It's really not much of a calculus.
It's a decision that comes from deep within the heart, deep within the soul that the folds. Yonah, Mary, Abba, Nima, they're my brother and my sister.
The people in Australia, I may not know them, but we know each other. We're brothers and sisters.
So for me, and I don't say this to impress at all, I know how little I've done.
For me, the question is not why go? But how can one not go?
We're brothers and we're sisters. And the purpose of going was not to make political statements.
It was from a distance away to come and to say, we care for you, we love you.
And in the end, the RAV is supposed to model that care.
And the best way to model that care is not only to talk about it.
The best sermon one can give about Avat Yisrael is to do it, is being there, is soldiers love me, pick.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Me up at the airport.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: And being in Australia, meaning it should. You know, Australia is a beautiful country.
Bandai is like a paradise.
It's tucked into the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by hills, by the beauty of God's creation.
And the enemy turned that place into a killing field.
And so I wish it were unnecessary. But to be with Australian Jewry, I didn't lift them as much as they lifted me. That's what I felt.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: How did you know that your presence there made a difference?
[00:14:35] Speaker B: I don't know if it made a difference, but for me, being at the bedside of Geffen.
Geffen is a young man who was a holy Muslim, Ahmad. He tried to stop the shooter and he was semi conscious.
Just being at his bedside.
Much closer than I am to you now.
And he can't speak. God willing, soon he will be able to speak.
And when we said the Shema together, sang Shema and he opened his eyes and a tear comes.
That's what it is.
That's what it is. Nothing.
Nothing more. In fact, I saw him a few times.
By the end, I was able to say to him, when you get married, either you invite me or I'm crashing.
Gotta dance under your chupa. I just met. I'll tell you an Natan story.
Went to see the family of Alex.
Many Soviet Jews who lived in Australia, escaping from the Soviet Union, live in Australia.
And a few were murdered at Bandai. And Alex was murdered.
And I'm sitting with his family, with his wife, with Sabina his daughter and Zvi his son.
And they were refuseniks going back. Their parents were refusenik. Alex was a refusenik. And they start talking about Mendelevich and then they start talking about Nathan.
For me, one of the great moments just shows you who Nathan is. On my way out, I said, you know, let me give Nathan a ring. And he picked up the phone.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: What time was it?
[00:16:20] Speaker B: And I could hear Nathan say, wah, wah.
I said, nathan, do you want to say a few words? He said, of course.
And the phone was on speaker. I don't understand a word they said. It was in Russian. But suddenly the whole family gathered around Natan.
And for me, that's Natan.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Beautiful story.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: He's the Rebbe. He's the Rebbe. Having been through it. Just whatever he said brought them such solace, such comfort. We're brothers.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Just to be there, just to show up.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: And it's been my most foundational teaching.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: I want you to know I learned this from you. And I've quoted in your name and I've talked about it. You know, I've been here for almost 21 years. And you know, unfortunately, you have in a big community like this, things.
Things happen that are unspeakable sometimes. And you're definitely never Prepared for tragedy, like some of the things that can happen in a community and a number of times where something happened. And sometimes I'm closer with the family or less to do with the family. And especially when you have less to do with the family. You don't exactly know what your role is. And I literally say, I think about you and think about the things, things that you're saying now and how you taught me how you just show up, you know, you don't have to have a word, you don't have to say anything. And yeah, I've tried to teach that to others that you know. Yes. Because people tend to not show up. You don't know what. You don't know what your role is. You don't want to overstep, which is important. You obviously have to be sensitive and know where you're not wanted also.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: But I think you said it very well now. It's important when showing up, not to impose yourself. When to visit a young man, Yakov, who was seriously wounded. His father was amongst those murdered in the Bandai attack and his brother was there, Yaakov's brother. So both of them, their father had been killed. And he said it's too much for him.
And I understood that he said it's too much because he couldn't even be at his. My brother couldn't be at our father's funeral the day before.
And so one also has to know when to step back.
One has to move forward. And I've seen many, many rabbis and lay people do this well beyond anything I could do.
But just sitting with the brother was on Shabbat. We sat with him for two hours.
I recognized that this was a moment with Shabbat, but still was a moment of.
There are so many layers to this Hara.
And of course, although we're going there for pastoral reasons, if something in the realm of politics, which, as I said previously, for me, I don't identify as political, it's defense of Israel.
If there's a possibility to make a point, make a point.
And so when I saw the Prime Minister, who has been terrible in Australia, he has not condemned these violent demonstrations. He's just not said anything when the demonstrators call out global intifada and genocide. So I called my dear Richie Torres and Richie wrote a letter to the Prime Minister.
And when he went into Rabbi Ben Elton Synagogue, he's a hovv graduate of one of the largest synagogues in Australia.
And I saw the Prime Minister. I don't know if the people there were happy with this But I made a beeline right to him. And very respectfully, I looked into his eyes and I said, I have a letter from my congressman who is a superstar already, and you're going to hear from him.
And I quoted from the letter and Richie wrote, when you're silent in the face of Israel being demonized and the Jewish people being deused, humanized, then you're creating an atmosphere for violence.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: And you said that too.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: I said that straight to him and gave him the letter.
And then quoting Mordechai, I said, it's your moment.
If you're going to step up, you'll be remembered well.
But if you continue remaining silent, you are complicit. Then I did say to him, did.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: He get a response?
[00:20:48] Speaker B: No response. Okay. But I said to him, because I'm a hugger, I said, can I hug you?
And I hugged him. I said, it's your moment.
And at the same Tefilla, the premier was there, Chris, they call him, that's his first name.
And he's been wonderful. So as he passed by, he's a young man, I said to him, I'm a Cohen, I'm a Jewish priest. Can I give you a Birkat kohed?
And he said, yes, I blessed him Hebrew and English. And he looked up at me and he said, rabbi, I needed those blessings.
These are his words. He said, I feel shame that this hara occurred under my watch.
And I was just comparing the response of these two.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Of these two people.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: He responds, krista is the premier with such empathy.
And from the Prime Minister, there was a non response, just a non response.
And I feel very.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Still, something penetrated. Right.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Well, he's been under a lot of pressure and we've been able to write about it and get into major Australian papers. And the key with antisemitism is not to be afraid. I have found around the world that many Jews are afraid to speak up.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: You told me that last week that people didn't want to come out.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: They're afraid because when you speak out against anti Semitism, you're thinking it's going to invite a backlash.
And the opposite is true for the spiritual activists. The more you speak out, the more we're protected rather than rendered vulnerable.
And now I think we're being tested.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Right?
[00:22:41] Speaker B: I mean, conversations around the table in Sydney, Australia had Rabbi Ben and Hinder's home.
The conversation was about that, the anti Semitism, what will be tomorrow.
I wasn't around in the 30s. I wouldn't compare this to 1938. 39 Kristallnacht but was this talk 29, 30, 31, 32.
And we dare not make the same mistake.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: So you weren't around in the 30s, but you were in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s. Can we go all the way back and talk about young Avi Weiss? You know, not everyone acts like this. Not everybody has the courage or has the passion or has that spiritual connection to do the things that you've done.
Where do you trace it back to?
[00:23:33] Speaker B: I played a role amongst many. Many understood who played, played the role.
And in a certain sense, I was certainly not the first. There were others who were there before me in the Soviet jury movement, way before me. Jacob Bernbound, a blessed memory. Glenn Richter, who is the tzadik of the Soviet jury movement. And there were other rabbis.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: But what is it? Do you have a. Do you have a memory of. Again, I don't know. Was it a teenager? Was it in college? Was it later? Do you. The first time that you made a decision to join something, some kind of protest or some kind of, you know, speaking out that, you know, that became what I know, became totally second nature to you?
[00:24:20] Speaker B: For me, it was probably a confluence of how in 1969, nine Jews were hanged in Baghdad Square.
And I was a rabbi in St. Louis.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Okay, where you were raised, Chesterfield.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: And there's a picture of nine Jews hanging with the word Yuda across their chest.
And that was what I saw. And on the other hand, I was reading stuff like the St. Louis, the story of the St. Louis that came to these shores.
And Jewish refugees were looking for freedom.
And Roosevelt, who my bubby called Rosenberg, by the way, but we know the truth about Roosevelt. He didn't allow the ship to dock. And that ship turned around. And probably more than 50% of those on board met their deaths in the camps.
And in the early part of my rabbinate, it was only 20 years after the Shoah. 20 years after you lose 6 million, you're still in the Shiva. So people were asking, why? Where was God?
And the story of the St. Louis taught me that. The question is, we have a right to ask, where was God? But there's another question.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: Where was man?
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Where was man? Where was woman? Where were we?
And the story of the St. Louis taught us we didn't do enough.
So I was a never again Jew. And there were others from my generation, your father. We were never again Jews.
And all of our lives, many of us as a team, we stood together, each with their own voice, screaming out, never again.
And for me, after 80, reaching 80 now I'm 81.
After almost 60 years of activism, to see what I'm seeing now.
Jews being murdered in the streets in Pittsburgh and San Diego and Jersey City and Muncie, in Washington and Belgium, in France, in Australia.
Never, ever did I believe that I would see this. This is what we were raising a voice about.
And this time we should not make the same mistake. You got to stand up, and you got to stand up strong.
And it's up to the Jewish community to do that.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: So tell us about both Nathan Sharansky and Avital.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Nathan is a man of greatness.
He's the real deal.
The real deal in many different ways.
He's known around the world because of his heroism in the face of the kgb, as he writes in his book Fear no Evil.
He was a hero. He was a hero that inspired the world.
But he didn't stop when he was released. He could have gone into retirement.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: We'll get there. Did you meet him before? Did you meet him in Russia?
[00:27:25] Speaker B: I was never allowed into Russia.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: You never went to Russia? I was just reading the part of the book that Rabbi Lookstein spent a lot of time with him in.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Rabbi Lookstein deserves all the credit in the world.
He, I think, is the rabbi in America who really led the way. And there were other rabbis.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: So you hadn't met him, but you had heard, obviously, about him.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I was only permitted to go into the Soviet Union in 1988.
Second time, 1989. And in 1990, I was denied again the right to go.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: In 1991 was my first job.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Well, that's when there was concern about Pam yet and anti Semitism and all of that.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: So I was not allowed in. And I remember Senator d' Amato making a big deal about it. And there were op EDS in newspapers.
Natan.
Natan was. Was a hero.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: So you obviously knew about. About him. And then. Tell me about when you first met Avital.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Well, let me just say that about Natan.
For me, what's striking about Nathan is that after he was released in time, he joins the Knesset now. Nathan is a genius. He's a genius. You don't want to play chess against him, clearly. And he's a genius.
He's a genius. And he's in the Knesset.
And as my father used to say, a politician is a politician. A Bayin is a politician. Thus is a politician.
Jewish politicians.
But the integrity of Natan. He left the government twice.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: He left power twice over principles. He moved from heroism to an unbelievable integrity. And then to Crown it. He becomes the head of the Jewish Agency. Now, Natan has very strong opinions, but in the Jewish Agency, he teaches everyone around the table who also thinks that only they have the answer. He was a great listener.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: And he re. Energized the Jewish Agency. The Jewish Agency was on the downfall.
And I think he lifted it to.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: So his book is divided into. The recent book Never Alone is divided into those three kind of nine years in jail and nine years in politics and nine years at the Jewish Agency, which is a different kind of politics. But let's go back again. He wanted to call the book How'd you meet Avital?
[00:29:47] Speaker B: I wanted to call it 999.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: 999. Okay.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: You know, he has all these. Yeah, he's a very funny man.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: I know.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Also, you know, when you're in those stages, you got to remember to laugh. That's why one of our patriarchs is called Laugh.
I mean, that's the best you can do. Yitzchak. And Yishmal's got a better patriarchal name.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Right? Right.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: And Yitzhak doesn't mean he laughed. He will laugh.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: He will laugh. That's right.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: This great sense of healthy. You don't want to go one on one with.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: It's a healthy thing.
So when's the first time you met Avital?
[00:30:23] Speaker B: I mean, I.
The beginning. I still remember standing with her and Jacob Birnbaum when she presented a ring.
I don't know if it was the real deal, a wedding ring at the Soviet Mission on 67th Street.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: And 3rd Avenue or wherever it was.
And Avital was there. But I really think that our close, close relationship started when Natan was on a 130 day hunger strike.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: So this is around. This is the late 70s.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: No, it was in. That was already 1882.
It was in October of 82.
And I decided that just in solidarity with Nathan, I would try to go on a hunger strike. I had never fasted more than Yom Kippur, and I didn't eat for a week.
And Avital dropped by on the fourth day, and I was sitting in front of the Soviet mission and. And that's where we sat the whole week.
And it was a very powerful moment. And she was traveling then with Elie Sadan, who became the founder of all of the Machinot, which everyone goes to now. He's received the Israel Prize. Eli Sadan, he should be well.
And Elie told me that he was struggling in fundraising for Avital, and Avital wanted to work with the establishment. But she wanted to be independent.
And the way to be independent is that you should be able to raise your own resource, your own money.
And.
And I assumed that responsibility to help.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Her with the fundraising.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: And from that time on, for the next three years, we traveled together.
Vital traveled. There was always somebody from Israel traveling with.
With Avital Yonah, Emmanuel, Abima Oz.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Uh huh.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Avi Maoz gets too bad a rap. Avi Maoz is a beautiful man. I may part with him on many political issues, but of all those who helped Avital, he was really a general, a genius.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: How did she know what she was meaning? Traveling around the world, meeting the world leaders? How did she.
I mean, did you help her do that? Did she have her own strategy?
[00:32:49] Speaker B: She was kind of adopted by Mosara Ravkook.
And there was like a central command. And then there were people in different countries who assumed responsibility.
So I was in America, there were others in Europe and in South Africa. And that's the way she traveled, raising her own money. And it's a beautiful story about her raising money that's sar. Connected, and that is that Avital went to Ludwig Jesselsson of blessed memory.
I used to tell Ludwig, I say, ludi, when you come into my shul, actually Daven in the rjc, but sometimes he would come over and I stand up for you. I'm not standing up as a play for money.
I stand up for Rav Moshe Feinstein. I stand up for Rev Yeshabeir Soloveitchik.
You.
You're the Rebbe of philanthropy. The Ludi Jesselson's taught the world how to give.
And for me, that was. Was very important. So she, Avital goes to Ludi with a plan of South African spies. I don't know, okay. And Ludi says to her, I don't think it'll work.
And, you know, she'd ask for $25,000 or something.
And he turned her down. And right there, Avital starts crying and she leaves the room.
Ludi runs after her and says, it's too much right there. He writes out the check. 50,000, 100,000.
As it turned out, Vinny, Mr. Jesselson was correct.
The plan didn't work.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: Didn't work.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: But he, Savital sits with me and says, well, I need halachic psak. Okay, I got a lot of that money left over.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: What should I do?
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Do I have to go back and give it to Mr. And give it to Luddy to Mr. Jesselson? I said, I think you do.
He bought it under Those conditions and a beautiful story. She goes to give it back to Mr. Jesselson. He said, once I give.
Use it amazing story. Use it as. It's an amazing. There's another amazing story about the chairman, the president of SAR Academy, Jackie Bentime.
I always tell Jackie, man, if I was starting again and wanted to create a movement, I want Jackie right there. There's no one like Jackie Bentine. God, over the years, you know, there was a time when on politics, I had this Israeli politics. He had that Israeli politics. I have grown to have such respect for him, feel such gratitude to him, such love for him.
Ish Anav, humble man.
So what very few people know was that one of the first large demonstrations with Soviet jury was in Madison Square Garden in 1971. 1971. I can't even calculate how many years ago that was.
So we're a bunch of Kindle and we sign a contract that who knows how many tens and tens signed the contract before you signed it. We went, we don't have the money.
Jackie signed the contract. Jackie guaranteed the money. There would never have been that rally, which some would argue really opened up the possibilities of Solidarity Day.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Well, very early 1971.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: 1971.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: And when did Solidarity Sundays start? And how long did they go for?
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Well, the establishment started, you know, Glenn started in 1964.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: During the struggle for Soviet Jewry. Took the establishment many years to buy into it. And in those days, seven years, wait. Eight years, wait.
That's an eternity.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: But finally they did start up, and.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: That just became an annual thing. All the schools went, everybody.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
It took time. And there were good people.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: And you were part of that. That wasn't. That was. Or you. Were you on the sidelines for that?
[00:37:05] Speaker B: We were very much a part of that. We pushed for that. I don't think there's a cause in the world that didn't start from the outside.
Change doesn't begin from the inside.
[00:37:18] Speaker A: It's just the way it works.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: That's the way it is. When you're on the inside, you're happy with the status quo. If you're calling for change and you're on the inside, you're at risk. You don't know if you'll succeed.
So unless you're certain you'll succeed, you don't want to get involved.
Change always begins from the fringe.
That's the way it was with Theodore Herzl, the Zionist movement, the modern Zionist movement was a French movement. That's the way it was with Martin Luther King when he started A movement. There were those who, black brothers and sisters down south who said, martin, go home. You are a troublemaker.
And that was the Soviet jury movement as well. Then it takes time, and then the establishment comes in.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: So you felt like it was, like we said before, some kind of. Not. Maybe not a partnership, but both sides working necessarily.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: I want to jump back to Abhital and say the following. I consider those on the west to have played a role in the movement to free Soviet Jews. But we were junior partners.
The heroic senior partners were the Natan Sharanskis.
They were the ones who put themselves on the line.
When we went to Solidarity Day, we knew we were going to go home that night.
We knew we were safe.
In 1989, when I finally got to the Soviet Union, I saw a refusenik, Meshkov, at a demonstration at Lenin Library. And let me tell you, he didn't have a fancy sign. It was handwritten. And when the KGB jumped him and started to beat him. And then a Canadian TV crew grabbed us and said, we gotta get you out of here because you can get killed. And they drag us out. And I say, what about Meshkov?
They were the ones who put themselves on the line.
Nathan Sharadsky, for me, is Nathan. There's probably no person I quote more than Nathan in terms of understanding the politics of the world.
But there were others.
Before Natan, there was Yosef Mendelevich, great Jew, heroic, heroic Jew. And after Nathan, there were others.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Right?
[00:39:31] Speaker B: And Natan was the first one to speak out for them.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: For Joseph Bigon. And the way Natan organized that big rally in Washington.
So what made Nathan different?
Two things.
The story of his love relationship with Avital.
They're married. And the next morning, Avital was thrown out of the country. Promised that Nathan would follow.
And of course, it wasn't until 12 years later that Nathan was freed. And Abital always said to me, when we traveled, what will his words be to me? His first words? What will he say to me?
[00:40:09] Speaker A: Right?
[00:40:09] Speaker B: And I remember when he came out and this chut to be at the apartment the next day, she said, avi atalotamin. His first words to me were, you for coming late.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Sorry I'm late.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: So it was the story, but it was Avital.
We came to know Natan Sharansky in ways that other heroes were not known within the Soviet Union.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Because of Avital.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Because of Avital.
Avital Sharansky was the most important activist of the latter half of the 20th century.
She's the epitome bini of One of my favorite gemaras in Megillah b' imakom gendula yesh anava.
Real greatness is when it's infused with humility.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: She said to me this summer, she said, we talked about. I said, you have to, you know, we said. Shana said. My wife said to her, you know, you're a hero. These kids have to meet our heroes. And she said, you have no heroes now. And she was, you know, that's the way she spoke. And she.
Tremendous Arabah. Tremendous Arabah.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: I remember once Avital standing up at a ga, speaking very softly, and she very softly says, and the elite of the elite is at the ga, the general Assembly. And she says, from here, I'm walking to the Soviet embassy in Washington, and if you want to join me, please join me to raise a voice.
And I think the people running the affair were not too happy. Avital finishes and she steps down.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: The whole place.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: The whole place followed her.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: She was and is so soulful.
Her speeches.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: Were.
Were words of Rav Cook that were accessible and just. It was.
It was enthralling, uplifting. It was a. A spiritual experience to listen to Avital.
And she was also kind of, like, out of place.
I mean, she's a very private person.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: And after she.
After Nathan was.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Yeah. She said, okay, now you're on.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: That's it.
I'm stepping back.
I'm gone.
I'm with my family.
I'm with Rachel.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: I read that.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: Nathan would tell you that his greatest achievement are his children.
And a public person. To be so connected, family wise, with Avital, with the children, with the grandchildren. It's. It's a magnificent story. And it's hard to believe. It's 40 years.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Tell me about that day. February 11, 1986. Did you find out that right then. Did you find that.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: Went into hiding. Nobody knew where she was.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Why?
[00:43:25] Speaker B: I guess they knew he was coming out. And there was a lot of discussion where she was. As it turns out, she was in Israel.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Being hidden by the he from Mosada. And you were home and everybody was at their TV when Natan comes across the bridge, Right?
[00:43:43] Speaker A: The zigzags.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: The zigzags. That story.
You know, the story about they wanted to put on him better pants.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Prison pants. What were you thinking about? What? Holy thoughts, right? N says, my pants. So many cameras. I wanted to make sure my pants wouldn't fall down.
And then they went outside and Avital spoke.
I think Nathan was, like, blown away. Because she had.
He never heard or just the fact.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: That she could speak like that.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: The accomplished speaker. And then she spoke very strongly about Yudan Shomron right there. And it was very strong then. And then Nathan gets up. I still remember what he said. He said.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: Spoken Hebrew.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Spoken Hebrew.
Those days in the Gulag were very difficult. But when they told me I was alone, that's his book. I knew I was not alone. Vaitishar and I would sing. And he started to sing.
And the activist in the back, we broke out in laughter because Avital used to tell us that Nathan can't carry it too.
And when he wanted to drive the KGB crazy, he would sink. He would sink. And when he was leaning hinema tobu manayam, I said, havita was absolutely right.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: It was a great moment. And when he came to the Kotel, it tied.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: The heavens were opening up.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: And then he came here shortly after that. That was when that.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: He came here shortly after. And a beautiful story was we had the great chut. He came to the Bayat and there was a little boy.
I think I know who it was, but Yosef. And he's pulling at me. And he says, as thousands of people, not only at the sanctuary downstairs outside, it was arranged by Rabbi Ronnie Schwartzberg. He deserves all the credit in the world.
I mean, I didn't know how to do any of that. And he's pulling at me, this young child, and says, rabbi, where's Free?
Where's Free?
What is it?
Then finally I realized that this kid had been at so many demonstrations, calling out for Free Sharonsky.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: I want to meet Free.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: He thought his first name was Free.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Great story.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: And you can tell the movement by what children are thinking.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: Children are saying, I remember we were once in Geneva in 1985. We took over the air flat during the Reagan Gorbachev summit. Avital was also in Geneva and she was arrested. It's not well known. Avital Sharansky made a plea to raise a Gorbachev Gorbachev's wife.
She was arrested. She was picked up.
And so we go into Erflat, we take over the offices and render Levicz, God bless him, takes a picture of Nathan, who's by then balding already, and plasters it on Vladimir Lenin's picture. Vladimir Lemon, the father of communism. He just misses.
And you look at the picture. Looked like Natan had two bald heads.
Then Mendelevich turns around, picks up his hands like Rocky had just made it up the steps. And then the KGME came and they beat the hell out of us. And that's the way it is. They humiliated us and they threw us into a very tough, very tough prison for a few days.
I come home and I tell the story at the Shabbat table. And my son Dov, youngish man, he looks at me when I told him that Mendelevich covered Lenin's picture. And he said, abba, what does Josef Mendelevich want with John Lennon?
And at that moment I said to myself, oh boy, it's all over, right?
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: This kid, my dovey, knows only one Lenin and his name is John.
His name is not Vladimir.
This is the beginning of the end.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: That's great. So let's talk about our kids. What do you want? What do we want our kids to learn from this era? And, you know, how have things repeated themselves and what are the kinds of messages or the kinds of things that we could learn from them, that could teach us about now?
[00:48:13] Speaker B: Well, it's not my activism, but we should know the heroes in the Soviet Union. We should know their names. I remember when ATAN came out, there were many institutions that were giving honor to Gorbachev.
I remember writing the piece for the New York Law Journal. And I said, honoring Gorbachev is like giving Paro an honor for letting the Jews go from Israel. Or Kissinger.
I mean, in my book, I quote, the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy.
And if they put Jews in gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern, maybe a humanitarian concern. This is Kissinger and he was being feeded as a hero of the movement. Maybe.
But I'll tell you who should have gotten those medals.
Eduard Kuznetsov, Silva Zalmanson, Boris Kocherbayevsky, Joseph Begun, Iden Nudel. These are heroes in our midst who are getting older.
Some have passed on.
And it's critical that our children know their names.
We have to know the heroes of the war of this past two years. We have to know.
We have to know their names. We have to know Yossi's name. Rutot.
Yossi Hershkovits is so very important.
After the Soviet Jewry movement, there were many people who asked, will there ever be such a movement that will galvanize young people, bringing them together?
And I think we've seen it in the past two years.
But every week for there to be marches for the hostages.
Pictures of the hostages reminded me of, of the pictures of the refusedness 100% on the walls of synagogues and schools.
It's right there.
People think that our young people don't care. They do care. They care deeply. All you need is someone to inspire. Someone.
No one does it better than you, Binny, your staff at sar just to bring everyone out.
And my message to the young kids is you can make the difference.
Everyone in their own way, your own song, your own dance. There's nothing as meaningful as giving and giving. Even in darkness. That's the test.
Even in darkness, when you give, there's a light. There's a light that just spreads beyond and pushes away the darkness.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: How about the rabbis? Do you see the rabbis picking up the mantle of leadership?
[00:51:10] Speaker B: It's a little tougher now.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: Why?
[00:51:13] Speaker B: Because in the Soviet jury movement, the real object of our protest was the Soviet government.
Even though Jacob Birnbaum was the one who said, we've got to protest against the Americans because the Americans are positioned to pressure the Soviets. It started with the Voice of America. They were broadcasting in every language, but not in Yiddish.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: Right?
[00:51:37] Speaker B: So that gets a little bit tougher. But in that time, there was Operation Redemption. Rabbis in the hundreds were being arrested. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionists, everyone across the board. Now, it's a little tougher.
It's a little tougher to protest when you're in New York City against the mayor who's running your city.
This is the test of leadership.
The test of leadership is when the going gets tough.
Not to act afraid, but to stand up and to speak truth to power. Again, I repeat, you know, this is not a political statement. I have never endorsed a candidate except for Richie. Richie Torres is my.
I just think he's so. He's so unusual.
But I have stood up against those whom I think were anti Semites, from David Duke to Pat Buchanan to Kurt Waldheim in Europe to Jamal Bauman.
Not as an expression of politics.
And I especially hope that the young people hear this.
Stand up strong.
Stand up with Hadar Yisra'.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: El.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: Be proud of who you are.
Be there for others in the softest, kindest way, but don't be afraid or don't act afraid to speak truth to power. That's the real test.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: Okay, well, listen, you've been, for me personally and for so many of us, you know, kind of, I'll call it my generation and other generations of rabbis and of educators who have learned so much from you and really appreciate your sharing this story with us and being part of this journey for the next month with us. It means a lot to me, but.
[00:53:34] Speaker B: It'S so important that this is all a team effort. It's done by family.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you very much.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Thank you. All right, thank you.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: That's a wrap.
