Once upon a time there was an evil communist regime called the Soviet Union. Nobody was free. There is a reason it was called the “Iron Curtain”. Nobody was allowed to practice or even learn about their religions. The Jews were especially persecuted.
I remember as a kid protesting in the streets in front of the USSR consulate in New York City to free Soviet Jewry. I remember the massive protest in Washington DC. I remember my father taking a group of his students to the USSR back in 1989 to secretly meet Jews and give them “contraband” of prayer books, Jewish food and other Jewish things that were forbidden in the USSR.
This man, Yosef Mendelowitch, is a modern hero, whose action of hijacking a plane back in 1970 to escape to Israel, helped bring the plight of Russian Jewry to worldwide headlines, which galvanized world Jewry to start the movement to free Soviet Jewry that eventually was key in bringing down the mighty evil Soviet Empire.
He is a modern Jewish hero living in our time, and I was just blessed to interview him!