When the Crowd Gathered

march thsirtThe morning was cold, damp and dark. The cold seeped through shoes and jackets as we stood waiting for the train to take us on our journey. Instructions were specific though brief: most important was not to get lost and not to be late.

This is not the opening of a bad novel. It’s how the December 6, 1987 March in Washington for Soviet Jewry – also known  as Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews – was  remembered by my now grown up daughter Rebecca.

But to a 12-year-old it was the cold, cold, cold that made an impression as did Senator Frank Lautenberg’s walk through the train and also seeing a friend from camp. It was so cold that our boxed lunches never had a chance to thaw out – or perhaps they just froze in the cold train.

On that bitterly cold Sunday thirty years ago, an estimated 250,000 people from across the country including scores from what was then called MetroWest (with Lautenberg as one of the facilitators) gathered on the Mall in Washington to protest the Soviet policy toward Russian Jews, to urge an end to forced assimilation and to allow Jews to emigrate from the U.S.S.R.

The gathering was said to be the largest Jewish rally ever held in Washington and took place just hours before the summit meeting between U.S.S.R. Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

The list of speakers and performers was impressive. Among them were former refuseniks Natan Sharansky and Yosef Mendelevitch; Vice-President George H.W. Bush; Speaker of the House James Wright; singers Peter, Paul and Mary and Pearl Bailey;  Senate Minority leader Bob Dole; and Chairman of Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations. Shoshana S. Cardin.

march wieselElie Wiesel, author of The Jews of Silence, a personal report on Soviet Jewry, an early look at what was happening in the Soviet Union, commented on the lack of protests to save the Jews of Europe during World War II. “We are not silent today…If I had three days, I would read the name of every Jew refused permission to leave the Soviet Union. All these names must be known.”

The thousands of people gathered on the Mall that day craned their necks to see what was far in front of them. There were no large screens projecting the speeches and singers. Children sat on their parents’ shoulders. Adults strained to hear. Our group kept to the edge of the crowd, fearful of being swallowed up.

marchcrowdAs an adult, what I remember in addition to the cold was the feeling of solidarity with the rest of the crowd. We were there for a purpose. The feeling of yearning was palpable. As I remember, the crowd was orderly in those days before checkpoints, metal detectors and bag searches. We were united and mischief was far from anyone’s mind.

Not long after the March, the Soviet Union eased its policies. At least one million Jews went to Israel and 500,000 came to the United States, enriching their adopted countries. In Israel, for example, Russian immigrants have been awarded several Nobel Prizes.

marchsharanskyIn the United States, the March in December 1987 led to the “Lautenberg Amendment” of 1989, which eased the immigration of hundreds of thousand individuals who feared religious persecution. Not limited to Jews, the amendment paved the way for evangelical Christians and some Vietnamese, as well as other minorities from what became the FSU (former Soviet Union).

For further reading about Soviet Jewry, consult the following:

Beckerman       When They Come for Us We’ll be Gone: the epic struggle to save Soviet Jewry (2010)

Bonner, Alone Together (1986)

Cohen, Molly’s Pilgrim (1983) (J)

Gilbert, Shcharansky: hero of our time (1986)

Golinkin, A Backpack, a Bear and Eight Crates of Vodka (2014)

Howe, Ashes out of Hope: fiction by Soviet-Yiddish writers (1977)

Kalman, The Cosmopolitans (2010) (FIC)

Kopelnitsky, No Words to Say Goodbye (1994)

Leder, A Russian Jewish Family (1996) (J)

Shalev, My Russian Grandmother and her American Vacuum Cleaner: a memoir (2011)

Sharansky, Fear No Evil (1988)

Wiesel, The Jews of Silence: a personal report on Soviet Jewry(1967)

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