Sharansky views the Six Day War in terms of the beginning of the fall of the Soviet empire. In his view, the 1967 war brought with it the sobering realization for the Soviets that they would not dominate the Middle East, as well as the emboldening of Jewish national identity amongst Soviet Jews who would begin to agitate to leave the Soviet Union creating a movement that undermined the very notion of the idyllic worker’s paradise and caused the foundations of Soviet society to crumble.
Sharansky explained in passing, how the compulsion of Soviet Jews to excel in their professional lives was an expression of their identity in a society where nearly all of them were completely disconnected from knowing what it meant to be a Jew in any other way.
Today, more than one million Jews from Russian-speaking countries live in Israel. Their presence has changed the face of Israeli society in many spheres—they’re the brains behind our bio-tech and hi-tech industry; hospitals and clinics are full of Russian-speaking doctors and technicians; Israel would have few world class sports figures or sports trainers without the Russian speakers and our arts scene is filled with musicians, artists and actors trained in the academies of Moscow and St Petersburg.
Technorati Tag: Israel and Sharansky and Six Day War and Russian Jews.
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