Interviews

Operation Wedding escape plan graphic, designed by Armands Blumbergs.

Operation Wedding: A conversation with Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov

Interviews /

A while ago I interviewed Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov for an article about her award-winning documentary, Operation Wedding, still one of just a tiny handful of docs on the Soviet-Jewish immigration. It’s the story of her parents’ attempt to escape the USSR in 1970, by hijacking an empty plane and flying it across the border to Sweden. Also known as the Leningrad Hijacking, it sounds daring and […]

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Maxim Shrayer memoir - Leaving Russia Interview

Leaving Russia: An interview with Maxim Shrayer on his new memoir

Interviews /

[Editor’s Note – Want to read this in Russian? Click here to read a translation of my Q+A on Booknik.ru] Memoirs about Soviet-Jewish life during the immigration period of the 1970s and 1980s have not yet saturated the memoir genre, so I’m excited to tell you about a new book that’s just come out this month. Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story is the second memoir by writer

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Cover of Swimming in Daylight by Lisa Paul, with quote from our interview.

A hunger strike and friendships with Soviet dissidents: Interview with Swimming in Daylight author Lisa Paul

Interviews /

I am really excited about today’s post — an interview with Lisa Paul, whose memoir, Swimming in the Daylight, is about her time in Moscow and friendship with Soviet refusenik and dissident Inna Meiman. In 1985, after returning from her trip, Lisa went on a hunger strike to bring attention to her friend’s plight and need for an exit visa so she could get cancer

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A Q+A on the Soviet Jewry movement with Gal Beckerman

Interviews /

When I first started this blog, I’d stated that very little has been written about the Soviet Jewry movement, and that most of it focuses on the movement in North America and on the better known refuseniks such as Natan Sharansky. A new book coming out today goes a long way to undo all that. Written by Forward reporter Gal Beckerman, When They Come For

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