A Visit to Moscow: Evocative Time Travel to the Days When American Jews Fought as One to Save Soviet Jewry

Jun 27, 2023 by

By Susan L. Rosenbluth

An evocative book can transport the reader out of the quotidian and into another time or place. Such is certainly the case with Anna Olswanger’s A Visit to Moscow (West Margin Press), an ethereal, dream-like graphic memoir for middle graders and the adults around them about a time when the Jewish community was activated to respond as one to the plight of Soviet Jewry.

The story was adapted by Ms. Olswanger from a true account often repeated by the revered American Torah giant, Rabbi Rafael Grossman, z”tl. In 1965, he was part of an early mission to the Soviet Union, undertaken by nine Orthodox rabbis and sponsored by the Rabbinical Council of America.

The Russians hoped that by allowing Western clergymen to make such visits, all of them carefully orchestrated to show only what Moscow chose to put on display, the propaganda would influence residents of the Free World to regard more fondly the marvels and achievements of the “workers’ paradise.”

Jewish Ingenuity

The Soviets had not counted on the ingenuity and drive of Jews—leaders like Rabbi Grossman as well as laymen inspired by their example—who had, for years, been hearing rumors of the terrible persecution faced by their co-religionists behind the Iron Curtain.

This included not only prison for crimes ranging from lighting candles on Friday night to secretly teaching Torah (or even just reading outlawed pamphlets, the so-called samizdat, or books, such as the novel still credited by many former Soviet Jews with spurring their reawakening, Leon Uris’s Exodus), but also the crushing poverty that often resulted from the Soviets’ first act of retaliation against anyone who dared ask permission to emigrate to Israel. Virtually all of them were denied, and most of these so-called “refuseniks” were subsequently fired from whatever positions they held.

When they—or their supporters in the West—asked why they had been forbidden to leave Mother Russia, the Kremlin’s usual response was that they harbored “state secrets.” One refusenik said if he knew what the secrets were, he’d yell them in public. “I’d be arrested, but at least they wouldn’t be secrets anymore,” he once said.

Western Supporters

Being fired in the Soviet Union was no joke. Not producing a salary led to the terrifying designation of “parasite,” a political crime that devolved not only upon the breadwinner but also his family and sometimes his friends and associates. These “parasites” were often saved by financial aid and gifts brought by American supporters, many of whom fell into two categories: those who supported “quiet diplomacy,” which meant finding ways to help Soviet Jews without attracting attention; and those who engaged in public, often loud demonstrations.

Foremost among the latter was the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. Founded in New York in 1963 by, among others, Jacob Birnbaum, z”l, a British Jew who came to the US looking to spread information about how to save Soviet Jewry, and Glenn Richter, who became the group’s foremost organizer, SSSJ soon counted among its members some of the most tireless activists in the Jewish community. Shlomo Carlebach, z”l, first sang Am Yisroel Chai at a “Jericho March” around the Soviet Consulate, and major figures, such as Rabbis Herschel Schacter, z”tl; Dr. Norman Lamm, z”tl; Shlomo Riskin; and Avi Weiss, became synonymous with the cause.

Rabbi Grossman was among their number. A native of Lakewood, NJ, who went on to become, for nearly 30 years, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Baron Hirsch Synagogue in Memphis as well as chairman of the Religious Zionists of America, Rabbi Grossman told the story recounted in A Visit to Moscow hundreds of times: to political and religious leaders of all stripes, reporters, and citizens—Jews and Gentiles—who would listen at rallies, sermons, and talks throughout the country.

Armed with an Address

Like most Jews who traveled to Russia to help, Rabbi Grossman arrived with an address: his was given to him by a Jewish woman who read that he would be traveling with a rabbinical delegation to Russia. She hadn’t seen or heard from her brother in more than ten years and wanted to know only if he was still alive and had “a bed to sleep in and food to eat.”

Finding the brother was hard (the rabbi first had to shake his minder and feign illness to get out of a scheduled tour); getting him to talk was even harder. Meyer Gurwitz denied his name, his relationship with the woman, and even his mother tongue, Yiddish. Rabbi Grossman came dressed in a tan hat and Western-style suit; the rabbis Mr. Gurwitz recognized wore black coats and hats.

Frightened the rabbi might be a KGB stooge nosing out Jews for persecution, the brother relented only when the two men discussed family members they had lost in the Holocaust.

Hidden in the Apartment

Mr. Gurwitz allowed the rabbi into his tiny apartment only after the American swore on the Torah not to tell anyone in the Soviet Union what he would find within.

The story of personal suffering as experienced by the Gurwitz family in secret inside that apartment is what gives A Visit to Moscow its raw taste of truth and sense of bitter remembrance of what Jews throughout history have managed to bear and withstand in order to abide by their faith and pass it on to another generation.

That Rabbi Grossman was able to help the family once he returned to America, thus redeeming the faith and trust Mr. Gurwitz had placed in him, should bring a lump to the throat of any Jew who was active during those heady days when the community fought as one—whether quietly or noisily—to redeem and rescue Soviet Jews.

Those efforts eventually brought over half a million Russian Jews to the United States and more than twice that number to Israel.

Award-Winning Creators

Ms. Olswanger, an award-winning author as well as literary agent and teacher, is known for her Jewish-themed children’s books, most of which, like A Visit to Moscow, have been eagerly devoured by adults as well as kids for their poignant takes on history, universally flawed humanity, and the power of friendship. A former congregant of Rabbi Grossman in Memphis, she began interviewing him for a collaboration back in the early 1980s.

The book’s haunting illustrations are by award-winning artist, painter, and set and costume designer Yevgenia Nayberg, who was born in Kiev when it was still part of the USSR. In her own notes, included in the book, she says she strove “to avoid the clichés associated with the Soviet Union and remain truthful to what I knew.”

The book includes an Afterword by Rabbi Grossman’s son, Dr. Hillel Grossman, a New York psychiatrist, and an essay, “A Saga of Soviet Jewry,” by Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Roth, professor of rabbinic literature at Yeshiva University’s Gruss Institute in Jerusalem and the renowned biographer of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, z”tl.

A Visit to Moscow should be read by children who would do well to know what their parents and grandparents’ generation did for suffering Jews halfway around the world. One day, those children may be called upon to act again on behalf of Klal Yisrael. When they do, they will stand on the shoulders of giants such as Rabbi Grossman.

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Two Sues on the Aisle bases its ratings on how many challahs (1-5) it pays to buy (rather than make) in order to see the play, show, film, book, or exhibit being reviewed. 

A Visit to Moscow receives 5 challahs

5 Challah Rating

Five Challah Rating

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