Yosef mendelevich biography of michael

  • Rabbi Yosef Mendelevitch was a Jew in Soviet Russia who accomplished the seemingly impossible: he practiced his religion despite intense.
  • Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich was born in the small Baltic state of Latvia after the Second World War, which was under Soviet occupation.
  • Born in 1940 in Leningrad, he joined a Zionist group in the early 60s, which was fighting for the legitimization of the right for Soviet Jews to emigrate freely.

    • •

    The Leningrad Hijacking

    By Rabbi Michael Laitner, Director of Education for the United Synagogue

    “Fifteen years hard labour. Treason! The death penalty.” These terrifying words reverberated around Leningrad courtroom during Chanukah 1970 as a Soviet judge struck his gavel on the desk in front of him.

    The accused were eleven young Jews who, six months earlier, had attempted to hijack a small plane on a domestic flight in nordlig Russia with the objective of diverting it to Sweden from where they would be able to move to Israel, an ambition denied to them bygd the Soviet authorities. Tantalisingly close to success, they were arrested at the airport just prior to boarding.

    They had been betrayed from within by a ‘plant’, placed by the KGB (the ruthless Russian security service) inre their courageous, idealistic group which defied the Soviet Union bygd clandestine Jewish and Zionist activity as they sought to maintain Jewish life in that country and gain the right to mo

  • yosef mendelevich biography of michael

    • •

    Prisoners of Zion. 1970, page 2.



    Semion Levit

    Born in 1947 in Kishinev, he studied in Leningrad where he joined an underground Zionist group to study Hebrew, Jewish history and culture and the history of Zionism. This group was also involved in the dissemination of the idea of freedom for Jews to travel to Israel. He was arrested in 1970, and tried at the end of 1971 at the Kishinev trial. Sentenced to 2 years imprisonment in the Mordovian camp, he was released in 1.5 years. In 1973 he carried out his dream of emigrating to Israel.




    Boris Maftser

    Born in 1947 in Riga, he graduated from Riga Electromechanical Technical school and went on to study for 3 years in the Moscow Art Polygraph Institute., later working as a senior engineer in an experimental factory of art accessories in Riga. Arrested on August 4th, 1970, and tried in May, 1971 at the Riga trial, he was. sentenced to a year of imprisonment in a high security Gulag camp.

    From the book: «An

    •

    Hijacking Their Way Out of Tyranny


    by GAL BECKERMAN


    LATE one summer night 40 years ago this month, Yosef Mendelevich, a young Soviet Jew, camped with a group of friends outside the Smolny airport near Leningrad. The next morning, they planned to commandeer a 12-seat airplane, fly it to Sweden and, once there, declare their purpose: to move to Israel, a dream they had long been denied.

    Most in the group were pessimistic about their chances � but none more than Mr. Mendelevich. He felt sure they would get caught, but to his mind, a group suicide was preferable to a life of waiting for an exit visa that would never arrive. Even a botched attempt, he figured, would at least attract the eyes of the world.

    Early the next day, as the plotters walked onto the tarmac, they were, indeed, caught. The K.G.B. had known of their plan for months. And the two leaders were later sentenced to death.

    But Mr. Mendelevich was also right that their desperate act would make their demand f