David Rozenson on How His Family Escaped the Soviet Union and Why He Chose To Return

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

The Soviet Union was deeply against religion, and in particular was deeply against Judaism, so that the full embrace of Jewish religious observance, or the study of Hebrew, or the slightest approval of Zionism were often seen as criminal offenses against the state. Some Jews, like Natan Sharansky, resisted—brave refuseniks who wouldn’t give in to enforced secularization and who organized underground networks of Jewish life. Eventually, through American and international pressure, the Soviets allowed those desperate Jews to leave. But what of the Jews who didn’t flee, who remained in Russia even after the demise of the Soviet Union? What’s their story?

David Rozenson, the executive director of Beit Avi Chai, a Jewish cultural center in Jerusalem, was born in the Soviet Union before his family escaped to the United States. Years later, as an adult, he returned to Russia and stayed there for years. On this week’s podcast, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he tells his family story, and explains why, despite his family risking so much to leave, he chose to go back and serve the Jews of the former Soviet Union.

Musical selections are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The communist ideology of the Soviet Union was anti-religious, and fully embracing Jewish religious observance, or the study of Hebrew, or holding a belief in the rights of collective Jewish expression or Zionism were all seen
0:21.3	as more than deviant behaviors or wrong-headed beliefs.
0:24.9	They were criminal offenses against the state.
0:27.6	When Americans think about this story, we tend to look at the brave refusenics, people
0:32.0	like Natan Sharansky, who refused to give in to the enforced secularization, who organized
0:37.3	underground networks of teaching Hebrew,
0:39.4	and studying Jewish history and Jewish texts, who followed the news of Israel.
0:43.9	Of course, Sharansky was made to suffer for these communist crimes.
0:47.9	But when, eventually, through American and international pressure, the Soviets were compelled
0:53.8	to allow the Jews who were
0:55.2	desperate to immigrate to Israel the freedom to leave. We in America, who followed the story,
1:00.3	we tend to follow them out of Russia, to the West, and to Israel. Well, today, I want to
1:05.9	train our eyes on a different aspect of the Soviet and then Russian Jewish experience.
1:11.5	What of the Jews who did not flee to the West, who did not go up to Israel, who remained
1:16.4	after the Cold War, after the demise of the Soviet Union, who remained in Russia?
1:21.5	What of them?
1:22.7	What kind of Jewish questions and Jewish knowledge and religious observance could be encouraged to sprout
1:28.6	after Jewish life had been kept dormant for so long.
1:32.3	Welcome to the Tikva podcast.
1:33.5	I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
1:35.5	Today's guest is David Rosenson, currently the executive director of Bait Avichai in
1:40.3	Jerusalem, but formerly the head of all of Avichai's work in the former Soviet Union. He has a special
	...

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