How the Myth of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict’s Supreme Importance Distorted 70 Years of American Middle East Policy
What if there is no solution?
October 3, 2019
How Secret Hebrew Lessons Turned a Soviet Jew into a Leader of the Refusenik Movement
With the help of an “Esperanto” club.
Beginning in 1971, the Soviet police repeatedly arrested Yosef Begun for his involvement in teaching Hebrew, his connections with other Jewish dissidents, and his application to emigrate to Israel. Thanks to American pressure, he was released from his final imprisonment at the beginning of 1988 and since then has lived in Israel. In an interview with David Samuels, he tells how he was first drawn to the underground Jewish revival in the USSR, a process that began when he met an older man who offered to teach him Hebrew:
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Login or SubscribeOctober 3, 2019
If Jews Don’t Speak Up for Themselves, No One Will Speak Up for Them
A Rosh Hashanah sermon on anti-Semitism.
How Secret Hebrew Lessons Turned a Soviet Jew into a Leader of the Refusenik Movement
With the help of an “Esperanto” club.
The Arab World Can’t Blame All of Its Problems on the West
Edward Said and honor killings.
A Stolen Synagogue Seat and the Fate of a Russian-Jewish Family
A memoirist sheds light on the shtetl’s social conflicts.