Yosef Mendelevich

Wow! This was my simple, undiluted reaction walking out of North Suburban Synagogue Beth El after hearing Yosef Mendelevich speak.  Just the night before I finally posted my notes about king David, writing how above all his passions was the love of God, above all his struggles was desire to serve Hashem, and here a day after I hear a live man who embodies that same spirit, and a fellow Russian Jew, one of the brightest heroes of the Jewish underground, who beat the unbelievable odds in his quest for freedom, drawing his strength from unwavering emunah, faith in God. 

Yosef Mendelevich looks very different from the picture on the cover of his book, Unbroken Spirit.  He is the only distinctly Orthodox looking man in the room, with the white beard, salt-and-pepper payous and youthful wonder in his voice.  

Rabbi Vernon Kurtz of NSS Beth El spoke first, introducing  Rabbi Mendelevich and expressing everyone’s solidarity with Israel – Am ehad v’lev ehad – we are one people with one heart.  Both Rabbi Kurtz and Yosef Mendelevich’s sons-in-law are now stationed on the border with Gaza. 

The cause of Soviet Jewry was the cause of Rabbi Kurtz’s generation, a motivating factor in his life was the fight for release of the prisoners of Zion, all those who fought for freedom.  Tonight’s event was in honor of the 25th anniversary of the March on Washington for Soviet Jewry, in which participated 250,000 people from U.S. and Canada. Rabbi Kurtz introduced Pamela Cohen, a woman who visited Soviet Union to pass a message of hope to the Jewish activists and brought back the truth about the condition of the Soviet Jews.  They said it was the American housewives like Mrs. Cohen who beat the KGB.

 

Yosef Mendelevich was born in 1947 in Riga, capital of Latvia.  He was born after the World War II when Latvia was already part of the Soviet Union after its annexation in 1940, so he grew up in the Soviet environment, went to a Russian school, raised by the parents who were firm believers in Communism, believed that it will solve all problems of humanity. 

Yosef’s journey to Judaism began with a sad story.  When he was in high school he met some Jewish boys and one of them told him about an initiative going on among local Jews to rebuild a Jewish cemetery.  The boy called others to join him and come on Sunday to the forest where people were meeting to do this work.  Most Yosef’s classmates laughed at the idea – one was busy taking his girlfriend to see a movie, another was studying for a test – but Yosef decided to go, thought it was fascinating.  This was in 1964 and his father was afraid – no Jewish activities were permitted at that time, he thought this was a provocation by the KGB to see who will come, to put them in a black list, so he’ll never get to a university.

Yosef went nevertheless.  He got off the bus and there was forest on both sides, and some villages.  There was no cemetery, so his first thought was that this was a joke and a provocation, and he thought about getting back on the bus, - but then he saw some people in the forest, about twenty or so Jews, who were digging and collecting sand, but he still could not see the cemetery. 

And then he slowly realized what it was.  This forest was the place of a massacre, where 28,000 Jews of Riga were killed in 1942.  People who came to the forest on that day were collecting the bones that were scattered on the ground.  In 1942 this was a mass grave, but then the ground sank down and the bones were exposed. 

Yosef was surprised that Russians did not make a big publicity around this obvious site of German atrocities, why they did not build a memorial to prove to the world that they are not Anti-Semites, as ‘imperialists’ were claiming.  Later he understood that Russians wanted Jews to assimilate, they did not want us to remember, they wanted us to forget that we were singled out and specially targeted by Nazis (and by local Latvians as well).  They did not want Jews to have a special cemetery to come to say El Male Rahamim (Jewish prayer for deceased). 
/DM: that's very true, there was not much literature on the Holocaust in Russia, I only heard of Elie Wiesel and read his books here in the U.S.  Event the word Holocaust was not in the Russian vocabulary, the period between 1941 and 1945 was called "the war".  I also have not heard of the infamous Kishinev pogrom of 1903 or about Chmelnitzky massacres of 1648-49 until coming to U.S./.

Some people came surprised – did you get permission from authorities to do this?  In the Soviet Russia one needed permission for everything.  What authorities?  These are our bones, our dead!  This divided the Jews into idealist and rationalists. 

The movement to rebuilt the cemetery brought more people, it grew, this became a famous cemetery in Rumbula.  Years passed, Yosef enrolled into university, studied electronics, nothing happened, no black list.  They would continue getting together at the Jewish cemetery and sing – and what did they sing? Am Yisrael Hai!

Suddenly he felt that people who died in the Rumbula massacre heard them sing and were happy.  Then there was an illegal demonstration for Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust remembrance day,  and the woman witness, who was pushed alive into the grave and survived, spoke about the massacre, and it became more and more known.

Remember, we collected the bones of dead people and put them in graves, and now I understood that the real dead bones were us, we came alive from this work, we found meaning to our lives.

Yosef and his friends started Zionist organization to prevent assimilation, they illegally studied Hebrew and opened classes, ulpanim, in deep secret.  Still he felt this was not enough and in 1968 he applied to exit the Soviet Union.  There was this infamous institution, OVIR, that was supposed to issue exit visas, but everyone knew that they did give it to anyone at that time.  People were realistic, they did not ask for permission to leave, they knew it will jeopardize their position in society, their career and educational prospects.

But if we did not ask, who will know that we want to leave?

So he applied to leave, and he came to an interview, and the officer tells him that if you go to Israel you’ll be drafted into army, and you’ll be in the army on the side of our enemies, fighting our brothers Arabs, so we cannot allow this – you don’t want to fight against your homeland, do you?  If you stay you’ll graduate the university and will become a professional valuable to our Communist society.  And Yosef came home, and he thought – no way, I don’t want to bring value to the Communist society that oppresses my people, don’t want to help them in any way.  So he quit his studies and became a blue-collar worker.  But then since he was not in college he got drafted into the Soviet army, and that was not good – that was very bad.  So he kept thinking and thinking – at that time he passionately identified himself as Jew, but he was not a believer -  he thought to get myself out of this predicament, I have to sacrifice something – so he decided to sacrifice his rational thinking – he begged God to get him out of the army, and promised that if by some miracle he won’t have to go into the army, then he’ll become a believer.

The next day he had to appear at the army draft station and he does not know what to say to the officer – if he says that he does not want to serve because he is a Zionist Jew he’ll be sent to jail as a traitor – so he just starts babbling.  He looked out the window and he saw a bird and he told the officer that he wanted to be free like that bird – so they sent him to a mental institution.  After a month of tests the doctors concluded that he was generally OK, but not psychologically fit enough for the army, so they prescribed him a bunch of medicines and sent him home.
/DM: the parable about the birds is from the Christian Gospel, another book that was banned in the Soviet Russia, where an irrational Jew J.C. was calling on his followers to be free like birds/

Upon release from the mental hospital he went straight to the synagogue.  There were only old people there, who remembered Judaism from before the war and Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 /along with Lithuania, Estonia and Moldavia/.  They were not allowed to teach the young people, but somehow he found the way to learn. 

He started an underground newspaper.  People were bringing him articles and stories.  One day a man came and asked - do you want to leave? He was an ulpan student who knew a certain Mr. Dymshitz, who had a pilot training – if we could get a small airplane we can fly from Riga to Sweden and tell people in the West about our struggle.  A small airplane that flies right over the tree tops won’t be noticed by radars.  They slept in the forest and saw two black cars – Volgas – people were looking for them, realistically they had to run, but they wanted to do something for their nation, regardless of whether they succeed or not, just do something.  He was so excited!  When it was time to board the plane that they were planning to highjack, people were looking at him – as a Jew he was wearing a beret, but they said it looked like a woman’s headwear.  Mr. Dymshitz, the intended pilot, was missing.  He started running to the airport building, saw him through the window eating breakfast with his wife and children, but when he ran into the airport suddenly he was heavily beaten, on the ground – all of a sudden there was police, paratroupers all around him, helicopters overhead – he was arrested.  They shot Mr. Dymshitz in front of his wife and children, but he was not dead, only seriously wounded. 

They were so ready to escape, ready to be free and now everything failed.

The KGB officer read him a statement, where he and his friends were called Jewish terrorists who betrayed the Motherland and deserved death sentence – he was only 22,  not the age to die.  He thought – I am not a hero, I am an ordinary Soviet student – but nobody asks you if you want to be a hero.  He did not sign the confession.  They took him to the special KGB prison – through the small window of the escape proof car he saw the summer day, busy streets of Leningrad – this was June 15th, 1970.  Life went on as usual and he was loosing his life, and he was thinking – do I regret?  No, I love Israel, I love my nation, I had an opportunity to do something and I don’t regret, I am ready to sacrifice.

In the tiny cell of the KGB prison people get broken by silence – the very idea breaks you – but he did not cooperate. 

They sent him to a mental institution for criminals – it was the prison for dissidents.  The idea was that if you don’t like the Soviet regime, if you don’t want to live in the best country in the world and build the best possible society, then you must be crazy.

People were medically treated in a way that they lost their mind, their mental abilities, he saw them, they became listless, like vegetables, moronic, it was terrible to see.  He was really scared.

A miracle happened.  In two weeks after his confinement he went to meet professor Lunz, who greeted him with “Hi, so you want to be Melech HaMashiach (king Messiah)?” Yosef explained that he had an uncle in Bat Yam, his only surviving relative, and he would like to go to Israel and live with him.  And then the professor said – can I help you? Yosef replied – I don’t believe that you can help me, I only ask you not to harm me.  In a few days KGB people came and took him away – professor Lunz signed the release form that he was sane, they were sending him to a regular prison – this was erev Yom Kippur.

KGB and the government wanted to set a show trial – catch them red handed, then revenge on all Jews.  They wanted to use them to show that all Jews are cowardly traitors. 

Back in prison he met another officer.  This one was a soft and polite man.  He told him kindly – you are like a brother to me, think – you are sentenced to death, give up, you are so young.  What is Jewish about you, anyway?  Your Russian is better than mine, let’s talk about Russian poetry, classic literature – you are a Russian like me, it’s just the line in your passport that says “Jew”. 

Yosef went back to his cell and he started doubting, and then he started hating himself for that doubt – what is he telling me, that I am not Jewish, he is taking away meaning from my life, he tells me to choose a life of a dog. So I decided to build a wall between him and me.  He had a handkerchief, they were allowed one in prison.  He made knots on his handkerchief to make it look like a kippah and put it on his head.  The officer asked what’s this – and he said how every Jew in the world covers his head and started telling him the whole Jewish history.  The officer said – you are stupid, you are digging yourself a grave – but at least he was not calling himself his big Russian brother anymore. 

Then he tried to pray, but he did not know where is east in the cell, so he prayed by the wall all the time between the interrogations.  Two days after the guards rushed in, they yelled – why do you touch the wall all the time, you want to take out the bricks, they found his tefillah, prayer, that he wrote on a piece of paper, thought it was an illicit letter, brought it to the officer – he said what are you, religious – he answered that all Jews pray.  OK, we’ll punish you, go back to your cell. 

The building of the KGB prison was the former prison of Gestapo, with filthy walls and floors.  He asked for water and cloth and cleaned his cell for Shabbos.  He found small nails in the wall and somehow used them to light the fire for the candles that he found in the wall between the bricks.  He collected bread throughout the week for hamotzi blessing over challah.  The flames went on – he looked inside and saw Yirushalayim – he got excited and started dancing, singing Am Ysrael Hai.  The guard came and yelled at him to stop making noise, you are disturbing other prisoners, but he went on – Shabbos is a time of joy for a Jew even in prison.

 

And then came the day of the trial.  He came to court, saw his friends but could not talk to them.  One of them managed to pass the message that it was Hanukah.  He thought I am back at the beginning of my life at the Rumbula cemetery and I am drafted into the Maccabees.  We failed, we were all arrested – all our friends from the ulpanim – but I was a soldier of Yehuda Maccabee – and the trial started. 

 

Mr. Dymshitz was visibly broken – his wife was in prison, his little daughters were arrested, everyone expected him to confess and apologize.  He came up and said: “I accuse Soviet regime for being Anti-Semitic – you closed our schools, you are oppressing our people, you are banning every expression of our culture, treating us like the lowest of the low…” 

It was a miracle that he spoke up.   

Another woman, completely run down, was called to confess.  She stood up to speak and said in Hebrew: Im ishkacheh Yirushalayim, tidbak yimini... (If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.)   

Each one of us came up like a Hanukah candle, lighting up and burning off, sacrificing himself.   

They asked him at the trial – what is your reason for wanting to leave Russia?  He said God gave the land of Israel to Avraham, Itzhak and Yakov.  They said – this man is a religious fanatic – he was brought up in the Soviet system, went to our university and all he cares about is to go to Israel.  

Yosef’s sister met the famous Russian scientist and dissident Andrei Saharov and he stood up for the Jewish prisoners.  And we all, the whole world, lit the Hanukah candles.  Thousands of people demonstrated, knowledge broke through, presidents were calling Brezhnev (Secretary General of the Communist Party, my mind gets flooded with hatred seeing his face in Wikipedia).  Edward Kuznetzov’s book describes the dialog:

Brezhnev calls KGB: What’s the noise?  People are calling me!

KGB head: We caught them, the Jewish terrorists, the Zionists, we got them!

Brezhnev: You are stupid, we need Western help, the country needs grain.

he head of the KGB got fired – the Soviets were falling into their own trap. 

An officer came to Yosef in the middle of the night, ordered to write an appeal, Yosef was refusing, saying he needed a lawyer for that, but the officer insisted that it needs to be done the same night.  So he wrote: “I’ve been wrongfully accused of treason, I don’t consider myself a traitor to the Motherland, because my Motherland is the land of Israel to which I am eternally loyal”.  The officer tried to persuade him to be serious and write a real appeal, but this was all Yosef agreed to write, so it was sent with the currier to the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court cancelled the death penalty and reduced his sentence to 12 year imprisonment.  This was the 8^th night of Hanukah. 

Normally the prisoners are transported to the labour camps in the train cars, they would push a large group of people into a train car like cattle.  But Yosef was labelled an “especially dangerous political prisoner” and had a whole suite for himself.  In the camp he read letters from friends and students – people were let go, they were writing to him before leaving, thanking him for helping bring their freedom – this was a real victory.  Addressing the audience of NSS Beth El he said – it was not me, it was all of you, all our nation and Ribbono Shel Olam (Master of the world).  12,000 Jews were allowed to leave the first year after his sentence, then 30,000 Jews the next year, and he said to God – I agree to sit here in prison as long as Jews are being released, and he sat for eleven more years until his health started to seriously fail, and he prayed - I cannot handle it anymore, please let me go.  After 11 years in camp he was sent to Moscow, to Lefortovo prison.  He was led into the interrogation room with three people, and he thought this must be a troika tribunal, now they’ll just read me my death sentence and shoot me on the spot. 

The officer read: The supreme court has ruled that for citizen Mendelevich's bad behaviour he is stripped of his Soviet citizenship and is sentenced to exile from the Soviet Union, away from the Soviet Motherland. 

They put him in a black limousine, like royalty, like Yosef the tzadik, the viceroy of Egypt, and drove him to the airport to send him away, to his true Motherland.

He credits his release particularly to the efforts of Mr. Edgar Bronfman and the World Jewish Congress. 

His concluding words: Our struggle for freedom brings freedom to other nations – after the Jews started to leave, the whole house of cards that was the Soviet Union started falling apart.  There is nothing in the world to withstand a strong will.

 Unbroken Spirit: A Heroic Story Of Faith, Courage and Survival
by Yosef Mendelevich, 2012.