A Chat with Sharansky

National Review ^ | June 17, 2019 | Jay Nordlinger

[Twotone]

Natan Sharansky looks the same as he always has — and he is a welcome sight. So is Avital, his wife. She came out of the Soviet Union before he did — a good twelve years before. She campaigned for the release of her husband, who was in the Gulag. I tell her, “I remember watching you on Nightline and other programs.” Her husband remarks, “The biggest mistake the KGB made was letting Avital out.”

From what I can tell, they have a tender, warm relationship — truly spousal.

We are sitting in a coffee shop here in Jerusalem, with mutual friends. The Sharanskys are known in this shop, as I understand it, and basically left in peace. In other places, Natan would be surrounded. “By admirers and autograph-seekers?” I ask. No, he answers: By people wanting him to return to politics.

This is a turbulent season in Israeli politics. (When is it not, really?). There has been one election in April and there will be another — a re-do, so to speak — in September.

Let me provide a brief reminder of who Natan Sharansky is: He is one of the hero-dissidents of the Soviet Union, a leading “refusenik,” which is to say, a person who was denied the right — refused the right — to emigrate to Israel. After nine years in the Gulag (1977 to 1986), he was released, and allowed to come to Israel. He wrote a memoir, one of the great prison memoirs ever: Fear No Evil. He eventually entered Israeli politics, reaching high levels. Later, he was the head of the Jewish Agency, a huge non-profit that is devoted to a strong Jewish identity.

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I remember Natan Sharansky and the Refuseniks well. Didn’t know he is still alive.
Thanks for posting this, Twotone.
I was especially moved by the part about his book of Psalms.