National Post (National Edition)
The ultimate survivor
Natan Sharansky, a shining star of world politics in the 20th century, brought the intense drama of his life to Canada this week.
Before a large, adoring crowd at Beth Tzedec Synagogue in Toronto Wednesday night, Sharansky and Irwin Cotler, the former justice minister of Canada and once Sharansky’s lawyer, discussed the struggle in the 1970s and 1980s of Jews who fought to leave the Soviet Union against the bitter opposition of the government.
Today, at 67, Sharansky is the ultimate survivor. He survived Communist oppression, survived a Siberian prison and survived Israeli politics. His personal history demonstrates he has nerves of steel and a profound commitment to human rights. In private, during an interview, he’s confident, eloquent, tough and at times lighthearted. His wellearned contempt for the KGB emerges in the form of good humour.
In the early 1970s, with his degree in mathematics, he found a job in a mathematics institute. In his first year he decided to go to Israel and asked for an exit permit. It was refused, but the request eventually made him unemployable. Soon he was arrested while demonstrating for Jewish rights.
The government decided to deal with him and brought a charge of treason (which carried a possible death penalty). The prosecution called him a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency and offered evidence that he talked with foreign journalists, communicated with other foreigners and spoke in public against the restrictions on emigration. Found guilty, he was sentenced to 13 years. He served nine, much of it in Siberia and many months in solitary.
The KGB guards demanded he become an example to others by confessing his crimes, an idea he refused to consider. Solitary confinement was expected to destroy him. He believes he saved his sanity by playing and sometimes replaying chess matches in his mind. He would sometimes imagine himself as white, lose, then play as black to re-imagine the match and see if black still won. As a child he was a chess prodigy who could win three games at once, blindfolded and against adults. In Israel in 1996, the years of unremitting practice helped him beat Garry Kasparov, the champion of champions.
When he was in Siberia, his wife and others were campaigning for his release. At Beth Tzedec, he and Irwin Cotler described the way refuseniks in Russia learned from their supporters in the West and vice versa. It was a process of mutual discovery.
Campaigners in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere lifted the hopes of Russian Jews for their eventual release. And the struggles of Russian Jews gave new meaning to the lives of their supporters in the West. I first sensed this when my friend, the late Barbara Frum, told me that she and other Jews were making phone calls to refuseniks, to raise their spirits and show the Soviet authorities that people far away were concerned. It transformed lives on both sides of the equation.
Long before the campaigns, people like Sharansky realized they were ignorant about Jewish tradition. Soviet schools and media taught them little and they learned the story of Israel mostly from books brought in by tourists. Leon Uris’s best-selling novel, Exodus, became a favourite, passed from hand to hand like a precious relic.
The campaigns, the posters and the rallies made Sharansky a celebrity prisoner in several countries. American politicians, led by senator Henry Jackson, supported him. Finally, Ronald Reagan’s government arranged his freedom through a prisoner swap. Immediately Sharansky departed for Israel, where his wife was waiting.
Soon he was involved in politics as a member of the Knesset. He served from 1996 to 2005, as minister in a series of four departments and for a time as deputy prime minister. When he quit, he said, “I decided nine years in prison and nine years in the Knesset was enough in both cases.”
In 2009 he became executive director of the Jewish Agency, assigned to travel the world encouraging Jews in many countries to become Israelis and offering help to various Jewish organizations who operate children’s camps or send students to study in Israel. Last year, as the troubles in Ukraine worsened, about 6,000 Ukrainian Jews immigrated to Israel.
Sharansky seems to have a knack for making a quick, concise statement at just the right time. At his darkest moment, after he was sentenced to 13 years, he said he had no more to say to the court. But he did have a message for his wife, Avital, and for all Russian Jews: “Next year in Jerusalem.”