Rav Mike Feuer talks about Russian Jewish refuseniks, why they were denied exit visas to immigrate to Israel, and how the Communist regime eventually let them go. Learn about US President Richard Nixon’s détente with the Soviets, championed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and opposed by Henry “Scoop” Jackson, co-author of the Jackson-Vanik amendment of 1974 and his assistant Richard Perle. Others discussed regarding the issue of Russian Jews include Shaul Avigur, founder of Israel’s Liaison Bureau (Lishkat Hakesher), also known as Nativ, Jacob Birnbaum of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, Moshe Decter of Jewish Minorities Research, and Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov and his influence on the most well known refusenik, Natan Sharansky.
