From the Commie Archives: Prager Speaks About Jewish Life in USSR

Editor’s Note: As The Commentator prays for the recovery of Dennis Prager, who suffered a fall last week, we decided to reprint an article written upon his visit to Yeshiva University in November of 1969 as a student at Brooklyn College fighting for the rights of Soviet Jewry. 

Dennis Prager addressed a crowd of 250 YC and SCW students on Nov. 9 concerning his recent trip to Russia. Mr. Prager, a senior at Brooklyn College, who spent Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot in many of the major cities of the Soviet Union, spoke of the serious discrimination Russian Jews encountered, but he also stressed the growing sense of Jewish identification, particularly among the youth. 

The most dramatic part of the speech was his recounting of experiences with Jewish youth. He went to the homes of seemingly assimilated university students, who proudly displayed to him their hidden yarmulkes, mezuzot and Israeli flags. Another youth approached him in a park, speaking fluent Hebrew which he had learned from Kol Yisrael. 

Another young man proudly showed him slides from Israel, which he had photographed from picture postcards. Dennis reiterated many times his tremendous surprise at Soviet Jewish youth’s attachments to Israel, and at their knowledge of the situation there, which they had picked up from Kol Yisrael.

But there were disturbing events also. In one city on Yom Kippur, Prager’s female companion was forced to leave the women’s section and physically dragged to the front of the Shul. When an elderly woman went up to ask the girl to join them, an old man threw the woman down to the floor. Needless to say, it was more than highly disturbing to see an old Jewish man throw down an old Jewish lady on Yom Kippur. This was done not from hatred, but from a totally pervasive fear. Dennis saw barricades erected in Shul in Leningrad to discourage youth from coming there on Simchat Torah. Only one entrance was open so that the Soviets could identify all visitors. This was not done in Moscow, because the world press and world attention is focused there. Consequently, Leningrad youth were brutalized by the police while celebration in Moscow was generally unimpaired. Prager witnessed about fifteen thousand people, mainly youth, at the Moscow celebration. The participants sang the few Hebrew songs they knew over and over. 

He concluded his speech by quoting a Russian word he heard wherever he went, shum — noise. “There is no question,” he said, “that protest helps practically and psychologically, and there is no greater moral sin against the Jewish people than to refrain from protest out of indifference.” He therefore urged participation in the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, of which YU has an active college.

Photo Caption: The Commentator circa 1969 

Photo Credit: The Commentator