Key points
What to understand first
- Refuseniks risked careers and freedom to teach Hebrew and seek emigration.
- Natan Sharansky and Ida Nudel became symbols of the struggle.
- A global movement made Soviet Jewry an international human-rights cause.
- The 1990s aliyah enriched Israeli science, technology and culture.
Chronology
Key dates
The refuseniks
Prisoners of Zion such as Natan Sharansky, Ida Nudel and Yosef Begun were jailed or exiled for their activism. Sharansky was freed in 1986 and became an Israeli minister. 89
A worldwide campaign
Students, synagogues and communities around the world rallied under the slogan “Let My People Go”. In 1987 some 250,000 people gathered in Washington on behalf of Soviet Jews. 89
The great aliyah
When emigration opened at the end of the Soviet era, Israel absorbed around a million newcomers — engineers, doctors, scientists, musicians and teachers — within little more than a decade. 89
Evidence
Sources for this article
- S89Soviet Jewry movement
National Library of Israel. Refuseniks, the global campaign for Soviet Jews and emigration to Israel.