The middle school students at the Bnos Malka Academy had the privilege of meeting Rabbi Yosef Mendelevitch and hearing his remarkable story. The former Jewish refusenik in the former Soviet Union spent 11 years in the Gulag before gaining his “Chanukah miracle” release in 1981.
Despite being deprived of any Jewish education in his youth, he was driven to live as a proud Jew. At the risk of punishment, he fashioned a yarmulka from extra scraps of material from pants. After a siddur was smuggled into the prison, he feared it may be found and confiscated, so he copied segments on small scraps of paper hiding them in a matchbox. He appreciated the opportunity and saw his responsibility to show the Soviets and his fellow Jews that we are a strong People. He refused to remove his yarmulka and, as a consequence, he lost the annual visitation rights with his father. He spent many extra weeks in the “punishment room” for his sh’miras Shabbos.
“They intentionally came, each week on Shabbos, to release me from the room and force me to go to work. I refused to leave and spent many extra weeks there. Through my years using my “little siddur,” I learned the t’filos by heart. During those long months of solitary confinement, I spent hours davening each day, slowly and precisely. It was liberating.”
One student asked him what was the greatest miracle he experienced. The former refusenik responded, without hesitation, “I am Jew who started with no Jewish education, and today I am a rabbi. To me, that was the greatest miracle Hashem performed for me.”
