Jerusalem Post - 12.23.2001

 

The Jerusalem Post

KGB: Thanks for the memories

Comment By Judy Lash Balint

(December 23) - It is a bitterly cold Moscow morning in December 1985. Refusenik Natasha Khassina is home caring for her eight-year-old daughter who is sick. Khassina wears a worn housecoat and a weary smile. A modest headscarf covers her dark brown hair in the universal style of Orthodox women.

I listen as Khassina goes through the motions of describing to her American visitors the dreadful limbo condition endured by her family after years of refusal in their quest to emigrate to Israel.

Fast-forward 16 years and half a world away, to a Saturday night in December at Darna, one of Jerusalem's more expensive restaurants. Khassina strides in to meet a visiting congressman, Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) along with a group of her fellow former Jewish activists.

The round face and high cheekbones are still there. But Khassina, the Israeli, is now dressed in a fashionable pantsuit, her hair stylishly cropped.

I fumble in my bag to fish out a slightly faded photo of our 1985 visit. Khassina laughs at the images of us both 16 years younger, but says nothing about her transformation.

Kirk has requested the meeting with former Prisoners of Zion and refuseniks to cap his first visit to Israel as an elected official. The youthful looking, trim congressman served for many years as foreign policy aide to Rep. John Porter, known to all those present as one of the strongest congressional voices on behalf of Soviet Jews.

The men sitting around the table had all spent time in Soviet jails or labor camps for their "anti-Soviet" activities:

* Ephraim Kholmiansky was arrested for teaching Hebrew

* Yevgeny Lein spent a year in Siberia for his Jewish activities

* Ari Volvovsky, another Hebrew teacher, had run afoul of the KGB

* Yosef Mendelevich was a key player in a desperate plan to gain freedom that involved hijacking a 12-seater plane to Sweden, returning the aircraft to the Soviet Union and making their escape to Israel. The group was caught before they even stepped foot on the plane, and the ensuing show trial culminating in death sentences for two participants was the impetus for Western Jewry to take up the cause of oppressed Soviet Jews.

Natasha Khassina was the only one amongst the crowd who was never arrested for her Jewish activities. During her years as a refusenik in Moscow, she was known as one of the boldest activists, going about her Hebrew lessons and efforts to organize women refuseniks quite openly.

Each one of the former refuseniks and prisoners has rebuilt their lives in Israel: Natasha and her husband, Gennady, are residents of Gilo. The Leins live in the Jerusalem suburb of Ma'ale Adumim with their two children and six grandchildren nearby. Kholmiansky, Volvovsky and Mendelevich are all Torah observant and involved with absorption efforts. The Volvovskys have lived in the Gush Etzion community of Efrat since they arrived in Israel some 14 years ago.

Mendelevich, 23 years old at the time he was sentenced for the hijack attempt, emerged from Chistopol prison 11 years later and arrived to a tumultuous welcome in Israel. Tonight, this 54-year-old with a wispy, long gray beard and steely eyes is persuaded to recount his story to the visiting congressman.

Rep. Kirk drops the best line of the evening: "So, I guess I'm going to recommend you to the FAA as the new US airport security consultant!"

In a more serious vein, Mendelevich thanks the congressman for American support of the Soviet Jewry movement.

"You gave significant help to the Jewish liberation movement when we were still in the FSU," he says.

But he won't let Kirk leave without telling him in forceful terms the kind of help he feels the Jewish people needs now.

"Today we feel as if we're in the midst of the struggle for our homeland. The Arabs never admit that we have the right to stay here. I ask you today not to allow them to deceive world opinion."

Lein, who had stood up to the KGB at his Leningrad trial, adds: "You have to realize that we are those who fought to be here. We won't accept that our enemies are trying to force us out. I'm proud that my son served in the IDF. We need all your help to tell President Bush not to trust Yasser Arafat."

Outside in the cool Jerusalem evening, we go our separate ways. The Kirk party heads back to their hotel for a few hours sleep before returning to Chicago and Washington. The Volvovskys drive off to Efrat via the tunnel road that they find closed due to the resumption of Arabs shooting at Gilo. Natasha leaves for her home in Gilo and a night punctured by gunfire. Yevgeny and the Kholmianskys take the bus back to Ma'ale Adumim, along a road that has seen sporadic attacks in recent months.

The context may have changed, but the players - passionate activists, sympathetic elected officials - and the struggle itself, go on.

The writer is author of Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times, at http://www.jerusalemdiaries.com.