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When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone
Gal Beckerman
The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
October 2010
On Sale: September 23, 2010
608 pages ISBN: 0618573097 EAN: 9780618573097 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History
At the end of World War II, nearly three million Jews were
trapped inside the Soviet Union. They lived a
paradox—unwanted by a repressive Stalinist state, yet
forbidden to leave. When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone is
the astonishing and inspiring story of their rescue. Journalist Gal Beckerman draws on newly released Soviet
government documents as well as hundreds of oral interviews
with refuseniks, activists, Zionist “hooligans,” and
Congressional staffers. He shows not only how the movement
led to a mass exodus in 1989, but also how it shaped the
American Jewish community, giving it a renewed sense of
spiritual purpose and teaching it to flex its political
muscle. He also makes a convincing case that the movement
put human rights at the center of American foreign policy
for the very first time, helping to end the Cold War. In cinematic detail, the book introduces us to all the major
players, from the flamboyant Meir Kahane, head of the
paramilitary Jewish Defense League, to Soviet refusenik
Natan Sharansky, who labored in a Siberian prison camp for
over a decade, to Lynn Singer, the small, fiery Long Island
housewife who went from organizing local rallies to
strong-arming Soviet diplomats. This multi-generational
saga, filled with suspense and packed with revelations,
provides an essential missing piece of Cold War and Jewish
history.
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