Page 13 - Issue 16

Chanukah in the Soviet Gulag

Natan Sharansky

Natan (Anatoli) Sharansky was arrested in 1977 for his
Zionist activism, his insistence on the right of Russian
Jews to make aliyah to Israel. However he was accused of
the much more serious crime of treason, for spying for
the United States. He sat in prison from 1977 to 1986
including eight years in a Soviet prison camp in Siberia.
After continuous public protest in the West, spear-headed
by his wife Avital, Natan Sharansky was released in a spy
exchange between the US and the USSR in 1986. After
making aliyah and establishing a Russian immigrant party
in 1996, he became Israeli Minister of Industry and Trade
and later of the Interior. He served as Chair of the
Executive of the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August
2018
His memoirs of the Soviet period are filled with sparkling
anecdotes about the power of the few against the many -
- the power that derives from "fearing no evil" and
laughing in the face of oppression. The phrase, "fear no
evil," is taken from the little book of Psalms, which he
carried with him through his long imprisonment.

The holiday of Chanukah was approaching. At the time, I
was the only Jew in the prison zone, but when I explained
that Chanukah was a holiday of national freedom, of
returning to one's own culture in the face of forced
assimilation, my friends in our "kibbutz" decided to
celebrate it with me. They even made me a wooden
menorah, decorated it, and found some candles.