Sixty years ago, Elie Wiesel—Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and world-renowned writer—published The Jews of Silence, one of the most important moral documents of the 20th century about the fate of Soviet Jewry. For millions of Jews outside the Soviet Union, the book became not only testimony, but also a call to responsibility.
Wiesel was not writing about the silence of Soviet Jews. On the contrary, he discovered within them remarkable inner strength, dignity and a hidden, yet living, sense of belonging to the Jewish people. His concern was directed toward the free world—toward those who for too long preferred not to hear the voice of Jews behind the Iron Curtain.
It was then that he wrote his famous words: “I went to Russia drawn by the silence of its Jews, and I brought back their cry.”
And later, the sentence that became a moral diagnosis of an entire era: “What torments me most is not the ‘Jews of Silence’ I met in Russia, but the silence of the Jews I live among today.”
Perhaps no other issue in modern Jewish history produced such broad consensus across virtually all sectors of the Jewish people. Religious and secular Jews, Zionists and assimilated Jews in the West, conservatives and liberals, Israelis and Diaspora communities all understood one thing: Soviet Jews must not be abandoned.
This is why the movement for Soviet Jewry became one of the largest and most unifying projects of world Jewry in the second half of the 20th century. In many ways, the struggle for Soviet Jews became a rare moment of historic Jewish unity.
At the same time, different approaches existed within the Jewish world regarding how this struggle should be conducted. A well-known disagreement emerged between Wiesel and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The Rebbe believed that assistance to Soviet Jews should be pursued primarily through quiet diplomatic and humanitarian channels, without excessive international confrontation that might worsen the condition of Jews inside the USSR.
Wiesel chose another path. The publication of The Jews of Silence became a moral challenge to the Soviet system and generated enormous international resonance. His book transformed the fate of Soviet Jewry into a global public issue and became part of the open struggle against Soviet state antisemitism.
History ultimately showed that both approaches—public pressure and quiet daily work—played an important role. Yet it is deeply symbolic that in 1990, when Soviet Jews were finally allowed to leave the USSR and openly rebuild Jewish life, the Lubavitcher Rebbe reportedly wrote to Wiesel: “Zadakta mimeni. You were right.”
For my generation, Wiesel’s book carried profound meaning. It restored among Soviet Jews a sense of belonging to the history and destiny of the Jewish people at a time when Soviet reality sought to deprive them of memory, identity and national dignity.
I had the privilege of meeting Wiesel on many occasions. Yet I especially remember our conversation in Jerusalem on the sidelines of a session of the World Jewish Congress, attended by Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, and Menachem Rosensaft, a professor of international law. The discussion was not ceremonial, but deeply thoughtful and sincere. We spoke about the contemporary life of post-Soviet Jews, the transformation of Jewish identity after the collapse of the Soviet Union, memory, responsibility and new challenges facing Jewish communities.
What struck me most was how closely Wiesel continued to follow the fate of post-Soviet Jewry. For him, this was never a closed chapter of history. He understood that liberation from state antisemitism did not automatically restore memory, culture, or historical belonging.
It is no coincidence that the World Jewish Congress repeatedly emphasized Wiesel’s singular role in supporting Soviet and post-Soviet Jews. His book inspired an entire generation to confront antisemitism and defend the right of Soviet Jews to live openly as Jews. As Lauder once said: “‘The Jews of Silence’ inspired many to combat bigotry and antisemitism.”
Wiesel himself emphasized that the struggle for Soviet Jewry was not merely a political campaign, but part of his personal and moral responsibility, saying: “It would be unnatural for me not to make Jewish priorities my own: Israel, Soviet Jewry ... ”
In his Nobel lecture, he spoke of Israel and Soviet Jewry as natural expressions of Jewish solidarity and Jewish responsibility.
Another observation remains especially important to me. After his visit to the Soviet Union, Wiesel said that he had discovered something fundamental: Despite everything, Soviet Jews wanted to remain Jews. They were deprived of language, tradition and memory, yet their inner sense of belonging to the Jewish people survived.
It is symbolic that this year—marking both the 10th anniversary of Wiesel’s passing and the 60th anniversary of The Jews of Silence—a major conference in his memory was held on May 16 at the Cymbalista Center at Tel Aviv University. It was organized under the leadership of prominent Israeli professors Omer Michaelis and Dina Porat, and scholar Yoel Rappel, with the participation of ANU–Museum of the Jewish People.
The very fact that such an academic and public forum took place demonstrates how relevant Wiesel’s ideas remain today, in an era of renewed identity crises, rising antisemitism and the reassessment of 20th-century Jewish experience.
Equally symbolic is the fact that this year marks the 35th anniversary of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. In many respects, the history of the EAJC became a practical response to the challenge formulated by Wiesel in The Jews of Silence.
When Soviet Jews gained the opportunity in the late 1980s and early 1990s to openly rebuild communal, cultural and national Jewish life, it became clear that the issue was not only the right to emigrate or repatriate, but also the reintegration of post-Soviet Jewry into the global Jewish family. This process, integrating Jews from the former Soviet Union into world Jewry while preserving their distinct cultural and historical experience, became one of the central missions of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.
In this sense, the EAJC became an institutional embodiment of the idea Wiesel recognized already in the 1960s: Soviet Jews had not disappeared as part of the Jewish people, despite decades of isolation, assimilationist pressure and state antisemitism. On the contrary, they preserved their desire to reconnect with Jewish history, culture and identity.
Not surprisingly, Wiesel once said: “If I am remembered in the future, I hope I will be remembered for my work on behalf of Soviet Jewry.”
Today, these words sound especially meaningful. Post-Soviet Jewry has become an inseparable part of world Jewry while preserving its unique historical and cultural experience.
Sixty years after the publication of The Jews of Silence, Wiesel’s book remains astonishingly relevant. It reminds us that not only persecution, but indifference as well can be dangerous. That the loss of memory begins with the habit of silence. And that the fate of the Jewish people has always depended on the ability to hear one another across borders, ideologies and historical catastrophes.
For post-Soviet Jewry, Elie Wiesel’s legacy remains not merely part of history but a moral compass. His voice continues to remind us that Jewish memory is not only about the past, but also about responsibility for the future.
