An unlikely pair of underground scholars kept a spark glowing in the Soviet darkness 

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Getty Images, Mishpacha and family archives

I was 13 years old on a cold Chanukah morning in 1983 when I was informed that my father, Rabbi Maaleh Galinsky a”h, had been dispatched on a secret mission to Soviet Russia in order to meet and teach members of the rapidly growing underground community of baalei teshuvah that was spreading across the U.S.S.R. Those were the days before the Iron Curtain came down, when thousands of young Russian Jews, separated from their heritage for over half a century, were rediscovering their birthright and were willing to sacrifice their livelihood and very safety for hidden opportunities to learn a bit of Torah; when even Western tourists could be arrested for smuggling “subversive” material such as siddurim or other ritual objects.

From the early 70s to the late 1980s, many brave activists, educators, and rabbanim made the dangerous trip to the Soviet Union, smuggling in Jewish books and ritual items and giving classes to an emerging network of these fearless baalei teshuvah. Joining the list of well-known activists such as Ernie Meyer, Jacob Birnbaum and other high-profile colleagues were rabbanim such as Rav Pinchas Teitz, who published siddurim and other seforim in Russian; Rabbi Tzvi Bronstein of the Al Tidom organization; Rabbi Yaakov Pollak, longtime rav of Boro Park’s Shomrei Emunah congregation; Rabbi Mordechai Neustadt of the Vaad L’Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel; Rabbi Shalom Gold; younger colleagues such as Rav Aaron Lopiansky, and a long list of others.

My father traveled with his good friend Rabbi Gold a”h, and upon their return after a nerve-racking two weeks, he was a different man. He never stopped talking about the mesirus nefesh he witnessed on the part of the young baalei teshuvah and their families under the constant threat of the KGB.

He would talk about the young Jews he encountered — Jews who until a few years before barely knew they were Jewish — how they risked their lives and livelihoods for the sake of studying Torah and the outside chance of leaving for Eretz Yisrael. These Jews kashered their homes, had bris milah, learned Hebrew, and began to daven and study Torah. They included doctors, lawyers, professors, and scientists who lost everything once they applied for emigration. My father would tell us that although he went to teach them, he actually learned so much more.

He also shared a little-known piece of information, which to this day is still mostly unknown: We were stunned to learn that an aging gadol b’Torah lived in their midst, a gaon by the name of Rav Avraham Miller, a talmid of the Chofetz Chaim who caringly nurtured their thirst for Torah and who was available to answer their halachic questions. This was really a surprise, because who thought anyone still remained from the previous generation?

We ran to develop the pictures and found the shining countenance of Rabbi Avraham Miller smiling into the camera.

And now, over forty years later, I was privy to discover the other half of the story. Rav Miller regularly consulted with another tremendous talmid chacham who was essentially hidden from the general public. This secret sage was a clean-shaven physician who headed a local hospital, yet who had Shas and poskim at his fingertips. His name was Dr. Menachem (Manuel) Solovey, and he, too, was a talmid of the Chofetz Chaim. Together with Rav Miller, his old and dear friend from Radin, the two of them managed to maintain an unbroken chain of pre-war Torah scholarship in the Soviet spiritual desert.