The new book Never Alone: Prison, Politics and My People by Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy is an inspiring, fascinating read. For someone like me, born in the former Soviet Union, Sharansky’s life epitomizes the just struggle of the Soviet Jews for the essential principles of freedom and the right to immigrate to Israel and to other countries. He was one of those activists who were not afraid to challenge the loyalty to the regime and did it with uncompromising bravery and determination, and won, despite all difficulties, arrests, interrogations, and nine long years of incarceration in the Soviet prisons. Sharansky, a leading charismatic refusniks[1] figure, was able to mobilize millions of supporters around the globe, and particularly in Israel and the United States, and soon, as a result, the powerful refusnik movement under the slogan “Let my people go”  paved a route to the mass exodus and entirely new future for over two million Soviet Jews.

The book is not exactly a book of memoirs, as Sharansky explains in the introduction. It is rather a story of his life’s “most important conversation: the ongoing dialog between Israel and the Jewish people”[2]. With an impeccable balance of aptitude, openness, energy, optimism, Jewish humor, love for the people and dedication he describes three major chapters of his life: “Nine years in prison,” “Nine years in Israel politics,” and “Nine years in the Jewish Agency.” He refers to them as three perspectives that he carefully developed during his life journey. Thus, this book is a result of his personal three-dimensional explorations about relationships between Israel and other Jewish communities: from behind the Iron Curtain, from inside the Israeli government, and from the point of view of a high-rank representative of the Diaspora’s interests.

And he was never alone in this journey. The title of the book is symbolic on many levels. But the most important message of Sharansky’s story is that in his work, mission and struggle for freedom he was always with the Jewish people and they were with him.

The first part of the book is dedicated to Sharansky’s upbringing and the shaping of his Jewish identity within the Soviet system: first in his native city of Donetsk and then, in the late 1960s-'70s in Moscow, in the circle of his intellectual and soulmate fighters. They were inspired by Andrey Sakharov, the prominent human rights activist, and united around a common goal—struggle for the exodus—but, at the same time, against the entire system of oppression. This part of the book culminates in the period of Sharansky’s imprisonment (1977-1986) followed by his eventual release in February 1986, during Gorbachev’s Perestroyka. His incredible spiritual resistance and stamina are well articulated in the title of one of the central chapters of the book: “Living Free in Prison.” The chapter evokes the sense of universal solidarity and international outcry of support on behalf of the Soviet Jews, including a 250,000  rally in Washington D.C. in 1987 that further fortified the moral victory of the movement.

The second and third parts of the book reflect on Sharansky’s life in Israel and his involvement in Israeli political and government work. He has continued to carry out his main mission of facilitating the return of the Soviet Jews to Israel, representing their rights and consolidating the dialog between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora around the world.  Sharansky engages the readers with candid insights into the challenges and accomplishments of this period of his career.

Sharansky’s statements resonate profoundly with one of the most important and distinctive parts in the Dorot Jewish Division—the American Jewish Committee Oral History Collection. This magnificent collection is a result of a 25-year project initiated by the AJC in the late 1960s which came to its conclusion in the 1990s when the collection was received by the NYPL. The collection includes over 600 hours of audiotaped interviews and more than 100,000 pages of text transcripts recorded from 2,250 individuals. Many prominent personalities such as political figures David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, playwright Arthur Miller, historian Salo Baron, violinist Itzhak Perlman contributed their stories to the project.

The collection has been partially digitized and 350 transcripts are available online, while many other materials from this collection are accessible onsite by appointment. One of the special categories within the collection is particularly dedicated to the interviews with emigres from the former Soviet Union who arrived in the United States in the 1970s. It provides a unique glimpse into the emigres’ experiences with anti-Semitism and persecutions in the former Soviet Union and their often dramatic stories of the exodus. Additionally, the collection includes many interviews with prominent American activists, diplomates, lawyers, academics, and writers who were instrumental in organizing support and fundraising campaigns on the American side. The collection contains an audio recording of the AJC Freedom Sunday Dinner including a presentation to Natan Sharansky of the American Jewish Committee's American Liberties Medallion that took place on December 6, 1987—the day of the unprecedented rally of solidarity with Soviet Jews in Washington D.C.

The phenomenon of the extraordinary movement was explicitly summarized by Sharansky in his new book: “The struggle to save Soviet Jewry was unique. It was global, involving Jewish communities on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It was pluralistic, mobilizing French Communists and British aristocrats, pious rabbis and assimilating lawyers, American patriots and Zionist activists, countercultural hippies, and Establishment leaders. And it was focused. […] The shared mission came down to three Hebrew words: shlach et ami, let my people go”[3].

Sharansky's book, Never Alone, is available as an e-book  from the New York Public Library and print editions are coming soon. The Library also holds all previous books authored by Natan Sharansky and a very comprehensive collection of the printed literature about the movement to free the Soviet Jews.

The New York Public Library is pleased to present a live conversation between David Remnick and Natan Sharansky: