Five decades ago, a group of British Jews slipped behind the Iron Curtain. They’re still astonished by what they found

Wiretapped hotel rooms. Footsteps shadowing midnight rendezvous on Moscow’s Metro. KGB officers crashing up in-home weddings. Tallis-clad informants in shul, and the panic of discovery of clandestine bris ceremonies and shiurim.

This is just a bit of what 249 men and women endured as they were dispatched to the Soviet Union by Ernie Hirsch of London and his grassroots Russian Religious Jews Fund (RRJ) between 1980 and 1990, the year before the Iron Curtain came down. Despite facing intimidation at every turn, these “tourists” sought out and assisted the many stubborn groups of Jews committed to living Yiddishkeit under the privations of Communist Russia. As the spiritual inheritors of the Jews who hid in caves in order to uphold  Torah despite decrees of the ancient Greeks, Russian refuseniks wouldn’t be broken.

Decades later, these teachers, doctors, rabbis, businessmen and homemakers who encountered them share memories they’ll never forget

Crashed Wedding

Rabbi Yisroel Fine

Leningrad, 1978, 1982

WE

do sometimes pay lip service to the idea that we have to be grateful that we live in a malchus shel chesed — a free society, but I’m not sure we always understand the alternatives. The stark difference between a free country and a reign of fear was vividly brought home to me on my trip to Leningrad in 1982, when I travelled there with Rabbi Joe Freilich. I’d already been to Russia in 1978, so this was a second visit to that totalitarian world.

Rolled up tight among all the Judaica items and essentials in our suitcases was a kesubah. A young Jewish couple, yichus approved by a beis din, was waiting in Leningrad for us to arrive and conduct their chuppah.

I spoke to the couple in advance of the wedding day, and they informed us of the date and time, and the special code we should use for entry to the gathering. It was too much of a risk to hold the chuppah in the shul, or anywhere public for that matter, so it would be in a private flat.

The appointed day arrived, and we followed the instructions. One by one, people knocked at the door and were let in with the prearranged code, till there were about 30 people in the room. We prepared the kesubah, the becher and the wine, and unfolded a tallis to spread above the couple in lieu of a chuppah. At the last moment, one of the invited guests, a talmid chacham named Rav Medalya, asked if perhaps he could be mesader kiddushin. We gladly agreed, and he was overjoyed at the rare opportunity.

He conducted the chuppah, and the small room was filled with happiness. We couldn’t make much noise, but it still felt like a simchah, and everyone was in good spirits and relaxed. There was no dancing because of the circumstances, but there was a bit of singing in Yiddish. We sat down for a seudah of hard-boiled eggs and some herring and onion, and I think there were sliced tomatoes.

S

uddenly there was a knock on the door. The room froze. Someone opened the door and uniformed officers marched abruptly in. We had been found out.

What I can never forget is the abject fear on the faces of everybody present. Rav Medalya, particularly, was in a very bad state. Later, someone explained to me that he had just returned from serving time in Siberia, where both he and his brother had been imprisoned.

Here they were, having done nothing traitorous, nothing crooked, nothing really wrong at all, but that hardly mattered. Because in a jurisdiction where there is no rule of law, just summary justice and unilateral action from the powers that be, innocence counts for nothing.

One of the younger people who was sitting at the table stood up, motioned the others to leave the situation to him, and took the officers aside. We held our breaths. I don’t know what this fellow said to the KGB officers, but he managed to get rid of them. They left, and we quietly carried on the meal.

What lingered long after the sound of sheva brachos and the sharp taste of herring was the fear on our fellow Jews’ faces.

Rabbi Yisroel Fine, retired rav of Cockfosters and Southgate Synagogue, was rav of Wembley United Synagogue at the time of these visits.