We are free to be Jews, now what?

Soviet Jews in America 

 

About 50,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union (FSU) reside in our community - between 20-25% of the Jewish population here.

 

How did we get here?  

Why did the government  of the United States decide to pressure the Soviet empire to let the Jews go?

What did the Refuseniks actually fight for?

 

 Sadly, the vast majority of former Soviet Jews currently living in the US are unfamiliar with one of the most inspiring stories of the 20th century: the modern day Exodus of the Jews and decades long fight that allowed them to leave the USSR and gain the freedom they enjoy and cherish. 

The acclaimed film "Refusnik" documents the struggle on both sides of the Iron Curtain: those who wanted to leave the communist regime and live in freedom as Jews, and those in the West who risked everything to help them.

After we watch a short version of "Refusnik", we'll hear from those who fought the system, helped bring down the mighty Soviet Union, and examine our Silicon Valley lives in 2013. 

This will be more than just a movie screening and deeper than reminiscing about the past.

 Join us for an honest conversation about the role of former Soviet Jews in the American Jewish community. 

Gina Waldman-  formal director of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry and the person who smuggled Andrei Sakharov's Nobel acceptance speech out of the former USSR 

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