Destination: the USSR – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as “Russia”
The borders are all but closed. Visas can be obtained, but getting them is not easy. Still, you decide to take a chance and enter a land that is a countrywide jail, and the people who live there will risk their freedom to meet you. Destination: the USSR – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as “Russia.”
In the 1970s and 1980s, Communism ruled the entire Eastern Europe, and thousands of Jews were trapped in its jaws. KGB agents secretly crawled the streets and listened in on phone conversations. Keeping Torah and mitzvos was criminal, and many Jews barely knew the basics of Yiddishkeit. But they thirsted for it, and they were willing to risk their freedom just to learn Torah.
Agudas Yisrael of America stepped into this desperate situation. Harav Mordechai Neustadt z”l took a trip to the USSR and saw how much the Jews lacked in order to be able to keep Torah and mitzvos. He founded an organization called Vaad l’Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel, which sent shaliach after shaliach to the USSR. Every trip was carefully planned, so that the shluchim of the Vaad could give shiurim, chizuk, and bring practical items to the Jews of the Soviet Union. These shluchim also got to see what it was really like in Eastern Europe.
When you need milk or bread, all you need to do is take a short walk around the corner to the grocery store. The store might have really long checkout lines, but even if they do, how long does the whole trip take? In the USSR, you would have to go to two booths; one that sold milk, and one that sold bread. And at each booth you would have to wait, sometimes for an hour or more, for your turn to buy these basics. There was a line for everything — bread, fruit, clothing, shoes. And you were lucky if you got what you needed because there were shortages of everything.
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