Courtesy of the KGB

¬INNER DESIRE “The grandparents of today’s young Russians really really wanted and davened for their children to be Yidden. That inner desire is what drives today’s Russian Jews to so highly identify with Klal Yisrael.” (Photos: Amir Levy)

To think that America’s Russian Jewish renaissance began in a Moscow insane asylum. Back in the 1970s Russian Jewish teenager Lev Katzin was there to visit his friend Avigdor Eskin. Today Eskin is a well-known media personality but that was Communist Russia where there were lots of reasons a perfectly sane Jew could find himself committed to a psychiatric hospital. The two were sitting on a bench studying the alef-beis when Eskin motioned to a figure walking down the hall toward them: “Look that’s Ilya Essas.”

Lev was stunned. This is the famous refusenik hero whose underground magazine I’ve been reading? he thought to himself. As Essas approached Lev blurted out “I want to help you.” But instead of saying “Great! Welcome to the Zionist lobby ” Essas said simply “What do you know?” When Lev told Ilya he’d been learning the Jewish alphabet Ilya’s response was “First you need to help yourself. Then you can help others.”

Weeks later as Lev stood outside the central Moscow shul on Archipova Street in a crowd of young Jews milling about he spotted Essas. “I was told you give a class. I want to join.” After all hadn’t Essas told him he needed to learn more?