Some of the people Lana & Bernie Dishler brought from Russia & Ukraine became my friends. One was pursued by KGB. He jumped from the balcony of a 3 story restaurant into hedges below after he discovered the man he punched in the nose was a KGB officer.
Also about in 1975 Valeri said, "Jim Russia won't be Soviet much longer. They are all old men and will die. Soviet Russia will die with them. IN 1975!
- James Pitcherella
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“I would say, ‘Shalom, this is a friend from Philadelphia,’ and those were the magic words. The refuseniks would get excited, telling us to come see them right away.”
Through the lens of 2012, it’s hard to imagine the oppressive and frightening conditions the Jews of Soviet Russia lived under. Those Philadelphians who dared defy the Communist government came home with tales of outwitting airport guards who were all too ready to confiscate the dreidels, kipot and Chanukah coloring books they were carrying.
“There was a palpable sense of fear, of looking over our shoulders,” says Lana Dishler, who became one of the local organizers of a massive march that brought 250,000 people to the Mall in Washington in December 1987 — some 14,000 of them from Philadelphia and its suburbs.
Like the march — whose 25th anniversary is being commemorated this month with local and national programming — those trips to visit refuseniks were a hallmark of the region’s ability to plan, coordinate and carry out extremely detailed operations, the Dishlers say.
“Philadelphia had a very active travel program. We sent activists, teachers, rabbis, Congress members, even a district attorney who went on to become mayor and governor,” Bernard Dishler says, referring to Ed Rendell. “We also had a large adopt-a-family program, under which synagogues would symbolically adopt a refusenik family. And public demonstrations — we were very strong on that.”
MORE AT:
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent
Philadelphians Helped Lead Soviet Jews to Freedom
December 5, 2012
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