Français
Español
English
Portuguese
“The book you are about to read,” writes Natan Sharansky in his foreword, “draws on the strategies of the movement I was privileged to be part of.”
By Shula Rosen
Author and researcher Izabella Tabarovsky has published Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide, a book that draws on the history of Soviet Jewish dissidents to offer guidance to American Jewish college students confronting rising antisemitism and hostility toward their identity on campus.
The book connects contemporary campus activism with the Soviet refusenik movement, a group of Jews who were denied exit permits from the Soviet Union, primarily from the 1970s through 1987, and who resisted pressure to abandon their Jewish identity and heritage.
“The book you are about to read,” writes Natan Sharansky in his foreword, “draws on the strategies of the movement I was privileged to be part of – the refusenik movement – to offer young American Jews a path forward as they face an unprecedented surge of antisemitism and assaults on their identity.”
Tabarovsky, who was 19 when her family emigrated from the USSR to the USA in 1989, compares present-day Jewish student activism with earlier efforts by Soviet Jewish dissidents and others who challenged official ideology and censorship.
“The hostility you face from those who call themselves anti-Zionists may feel unprecedented, so much so that some even call it ‘new antisemitism.’ But in fact, there is nothing new about it, and you are not the first generation of Jews to face it,” Tabarovsky writes.
The book’s central chapters examine pairs of figures from the Soviet refusenik movement and contemporary Jewish activists. One chapter highlights Kyiv refusenik Boris Kochubiyevsky alongside Elisha (Lishi) Baker, co-author of the student letter “In Our Name” at Columbia University.
Another chapter links the efforts of Georgian Jewish activists who appealed to the United Nations and the Israeli government with the work of Hebrew teacher and refusenik Yosef Begun and George Washington University alumnus Noah Shufutinsky.
Other chapters examine figures including Alexander Smukler, who helped organize the refusenik underground press, alongside Eyal Yakoby, who sued the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Sharansky and Harvard Divinity School graduate Shabbos Kestenbaum.
“What unites these stories – separated by decades, borders, and ideologies – is not only the risks their protagonists took, but also what they refused: silence, passivity, compliance, and fear of stepping beyond prescribed lines of behavior,” Tabarovsky writes.
The 256-page book, published by Wicked Son/Post Hill Books and priced at $19.99, also includes appendices with chronologies and documents related to what Tabarovsky describes as “the Soviet regime’s century-long assault on Jewish identity.”
Tabarovsky is a Harvard graduate and a senior fellow at the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities.
She is also affiliated with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Haifa, and the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.
Do You Love Israel? Make a Donation - Show Your Support!
Donate to vital charities that help protect Israeli citizens and inspire millions around the world to support Israel too!
Now more than ever, Israel needs your help to fight and win the war -- including on the battlefield of public opinion.
Antisemitism, anti-Israel bias and boycotts are out of control. Israel's enemies are inciting terror and violence against innocent Israelis and Jews around the world. Help us fight back!
