[vc_row][vc_column][vc_tta_accordion active_section=”-1″ collapsible_all=”true”][vc_tta_section title=”The Rescue Workers” tab_id=”1624966232619-d34fa254-bfdc”][vc_column_text]Until 1978, the Jews in Iran lived in relative comfort. Despite the general tension in the country, the Jews knew that as long as they treated the Shah with respect, they had no reason to fear.
That year, on the eve of the Iranian revolution, two young Chabad rabbis came to visit Iran: Rabbi Hertzel Illulian, today the head of the Chabad Persian community in Los Angeles, and Rabbi Sholom Ber Hecht.
Rabbi Illulian asked the Rebbe King Moshiach Shlita three times for permission to travel to Iran and help the local Jewish community. After the third request he received a positive answer from the King Moshiach Shlita. In retrospect it became evident that Moshiach’s timing was exact. The two initially intended only to teach Judaism and strengthen Jewish institutions, but those plans were quickly overwhelmed by the Iranian revolution, and the two were swept up in lifesaving activities.
The Chabad representatives met with community leaders and learned that the main deficits were in the areas of Kashrus and Jewish education. Very few of the youth knew to keep milk and meat separate. In the entire Teheran there was only one Mikvah, and its Kashrus was in doubt.
The two undertook the herculean task of transforming Jewish life in Iran. They checked Mezuzos, taught Jewish law, and spoke to the community about exhibiting Jewish pride. Soon many Jews in the community started to proudly wear symbols of Judaism.
Parents who found out about the activities of the energetic Chabad rabbis asked them to set up an educational framework for their children to help prevent assimilation. The two threw themselves into the project with their characteristic alacrity. At the time they had no inkling that the lists of names they collected for the purposes of setting up a school would later become a list of survivors…
Rabbis Illulian and Hecht kept Moshiach updated on all their activities. On one occasion Moshiach warned them to be careful because of threats from the Islamic state. Indeed, within a short time signs of revolution became evident on the streets of Iran. The revolutionaries roamed the streets with no resistance, beating and even lynching innocent citizens.
The day the Shah was overthrown was a difficult one for the Jewish community. The Shah’s father had nullified many decrees against the Jews, and there was danger that they would be reinstated under Khomeini.
The community members saw that the two Chassidim were a source of help, and begged them to do whatever they could to get the children out of Iran, particularly the girls.
Under the guise of a temporary study program, Moshiach’s emissaries quickly organized a large group of children to leave Iran. Officially the children were supposed to be ages 13-15, but in fact the group included children as young as seven and as old as late teens.
To their good fortune, there was no law in Iran at the time against children leaving the country. In fact, they would encourage the youth to go to Europe to study in universities there. Rabbi Hecht was able to obtain U.S. entrance visas for some of the children from the United States consulate in Iran, before the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was set on fire and its staff taken hostage. Rabbi Illulian, who had an Italian passport, was able to get Italian visas for the rest of the children.
The first group that left Iran included 250 young men and women. By some miracle the Iranian authorities did not notice that they were all fugitives.
Their first stop was in Rome. In order to continue on to the United States, they needed to obtain entrance visas for all of them. “The process was entirely miraculous,” says Rabbi Illulian. “Under normal circumstances, the United States would accept about one in ten asylum claims from Iran. However, from our entire group, all of them were granted asylum. Not a single request was denied. We contacted a State Department official in Rome and told him our story. He understood their desperate situation and instructed us to come with all the children. He gave all of them immigration visa applications and showed us how to fill them out. Within an hour all the children had visas.”
When the group arrived in America, Rabbi Sholom Hecht asked his father, the indefatigable activist Rabbi Yaakov Yehuda (J.J.) Hecht, to take over the job of resettling the children. Rabbi Hecht first housed them all in a summer camp, and then set up dormitories for them or boarded them with private families. He undertook the enormous task of setting up a suitable framework for educating these refugee children from Iran, who were not only separated from everyone near and dear to them, but also experienced severe culture shock adjusting to life in the United States.
In the meantime, the situation worsened in Iran. Rabbi Illulian asked Moshiach whether he should return and resume his rescue activities. Moshiach’s answer came swiftly: Go back and rescue as many Jews as possible! Rabbi Illulian fulfilled Moshiach’s instructions, and within half a year he managed to bring another thousand children and youth to the United States.
The rescued children acclimated slowly to life in the United States and became an integral part of the Jewish community. In 1987, there was another wave of refugees from Iran. Among those helping to resettle them were many of the first wave who had come in 1978.[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Longing for the Shofar” tab_id=”1624966232628-da408ac8-677e”][vc_column_text]Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gorelick
I spent Rosh Hashanah, 1953, imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp. Over a hundred prisoners were crammed into a barracks that was meant to hold twenty. The overcrowding and stuffiness were unbearable. I went outside for fresh air, and the freezing wind whipped my face. Outside, it was 60 degrees below zero, with nothing but vast expanses of snow for miles around.
On that Rosh Hashanah, only one thought consumed my mind: Where was my wife? My children? The KGB, in their fine-tuned methods of mental torture, had sadistically informed me that my wife was dead. They told me that officers had come to the house to arrest her and take away the children to be raised as good Soviet citizens. She went into a panic and died on the spot of a heart attack. The children, they told me, had been taken to a Soviet orphanage, to be indoctrinated in communist teachings.
I wanted to break down in wracking sobs, but I had no tears left. All the pain stayed locked inside my heart. I felt that my heart would soon burst from anguish. Suddenly, I had a thought. Even the most barbaric country allows a condemned prisoner one last wish. Surely G-d Himself will grant one last wish to a condemned soul. I had no doubt that Rosh Hashanah would be my last in this cold, cruel world. I begged G-d to allow me to have a few words with Him before I set off on my journey to the next world.
“Master of the universe! Today is Rosh Hashanah, and we do not confess our sins today. But in my situation, I cannot wait until Yom Kippur. Therefore, I ask your forgiveness for all the sins I have committed over my lifetime. Please, in Your great mercy, forgive me for saying confession on Rosh Hashanah.”
I began to recite a lengthy confession of my sins: “For my sin of organizing a hidden yeshiva. For my sin of organizing jobs for Jews so they would not have to desecrate Shabbat or holidays. For my sin of arranging legal documents for my students, so they would not be caught and face the same predicament that I am in now.
“Yes, I have committed many sins, violated many laws. I sinned against my communist overlords. But I did all these sins in order to keep Your holy Torah and mitzvot. Allow me now one last request: Reveal to me where my wife and children are. Are they still alive? And one more request. Today is Rosh Hashanah, and it may be the last day of my life. Merciful Father, allow me to hear the shofar one last time.”
I finished my prayer, and then, as in a divine echo, I heard a voice. “Do not fear and don’t believe those wicked men. Your wife and children are alive and well.” Suddenly, there in the communist prison camp, I beheld a vision. I saw a large synagogue with a platform in the center. I saw the Rebbe King Moshiach Shlita ascend the platform and blow the shofar. My heart burst forth, with joy and agony together. I broke down in tears and prayed from the depths of my soul: “Father! Father! Have mercy upon us. Save your children who are in such dire need….”
At that moment the camp ceased to exist. There was no barbed wire, no vicious dogs, no armed guards, no freezing snow. I saw only the synagogue, with the Rebbe King Moshiach Shlita ascending the platform to blow the shofar.
The years passed. With G-d’s mercy, I survived and was released from the camp. I was reunited with my wife and children, who were alive and well. The KGB had invented stories about their fate merely to torment me. My wife and children, despite their suffering, had remained loyal to the ways of the Torah. The vision I had seen on Rosh Hashanah 1953 began to take shape before my eyes.
Another decade went by, and we were finally able to leave the Soviet hell for Israel. As soon as we were free, my first longing was to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe King Moshiach Shlita in Brooklyn, to thank him for his prayers on my behalf, during all the years of our exile.
Rosh Hashanah arrived, and I found myself in the King Moshiach Shlita’s shul in 770 Eastern Parkway. The sense of deja vu was overwhelming. Although I had never been inside Moshiach’s shul before, I suddenly realized why the place looked so familiar. I had seen it all before, back in the Soviet prison camp.
As Moshiach recited the blessings over the shofar, I once again broke down in sobs. The sound of the shofar penetrated deep into my soul. The vision of Rosh Hashanah 1953 returned to me. Once again I saw the snow, the guard towers, the vicious dogs. But this time, I cried with joy. G-d had saved me, preserved me and allowed me to reach this day – to hear the shofar from Moshiach, as a free man.[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Dear Grandfather” tab_id=”1624972362054-6695a372-c2ec”][vc_column_text]The Soviet Union, 1958. Stalin was gone for several years by then, and the atmosphere of terror that prevailed in the land had dissipated a bit. Rabbi Moshe Vishedsky, a Chabad Chossid, sensed that now would be a good opportunity to leave the country with his family. It seemed that unlike in the past, applying for emigration he would not risk being sent to Siberia. Who knows, maybe his request would even be granted.
As a Chossid, he did not take any fateful step in his life without first asking the Rebbe King Moshiach Shlita. Somehow he found a way to smuggle a letter outside the Soviet Union to distant New York, in which he asked the King Moshiach Shlita whether he should submit an application.
Rabbi Vishedsky received no answer to his letter, and so he dropped the idea from his agenda for several years. In 1965, his desire to leave arose once again. His close friend, Rabbi Zalman Weinersky, had received an exit visa from the Iron Curtain, and Rabbi Vishedsky begged him to take a letter from him to Moshiach.
Rabbi Vishedsky wrote his letter on a cigarette paper. Rabbi Weinirsky undid the lining of his coat, hid the cigarette paper in it and sewed it back on.
Rabbi Vishedsky’s plan, which he detailed on the cigarette paper, was to apply for exit visas for himself and his wife due to their ill health, which was indeed very precarious, as well as for their young son and daughter. He also had two older sons, but planned to apply for visas for them only after the rest of the family had left, on the grounds of family unification.
After a short time, a small scrap of white paper was delivered to them, on which were written a few words in Russian, in Moshiach’s handwriting. The note said that he should request visas for the entire family, including the older sons. The note was signed with the words, “Dosvedanya, Dedushka” (Goodbye, Grandpa).
For Rabbi Vishedsky, this was the greatest blessing of his life: to see Moshiach. Over the years, this was the hope that gave him the strength to survive all the hardships in Soviet Russia.
Rabbi Vishedsky did as Moshiach instructed and submitted applications for exit permits for everyone, and indeed, all requests were granted. At the time, such a sweeping approval was considered an outright miracle.
On the 9th of Kislev, 5766, the Vishedsky family happily left the Soviet Union. But their joy was not complete. One daughter, Devonia, and her husband, Rabbi Mordechai Gorodetsky, were left behind.
The Vishedsky family arrived in Eretz Israel and met with their son-in-law’s father, Rabbi Simcha Gorodetsky. At that time he was not feeling well and was hospitalized at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center. Rabbi Gorodetsky wrote to Moshiach asking for a blessing for a speedy recovery but received no answer from Moshiach. Meanwhile, as a result of mismanaged treatment, his condition became complicated, and he remained in the hospital for many months.
Rabbi Gorodetsky was bothered by the fact that he did not receive any answer from Moshiach. He wrote another letter noting that he had contacted Moshiach in the past and had not been answered and that he probably was not worthy of receiving Moshiach’s answer.
At the end of the Tammuz of that year, one Friday afternoon, Rabbi Vishedsky came with one of his sons to visit Rabbi Gorodetsky. He was surprised to see him in an uplifted mood. “The children are coming,” he told Rabbi Vishedsky with great excitement. He learned that his children, including his son Rabbi Mordechai and his wife, the daughter of Rabbi Vishedsky, had received visas to leave Russia.
How did he learn this? That morning he received a letter from Moshiach, bearing the date of Tammuz. Moshiach wrote him a blessing in his handwriting “for immediate and complete healing,” and added the following words in the margins: “We have just received a letter from the 4th of Tammuz … All the members of his household… have received a permit to leave … and is there a better answer than that?!”
“Well,” said Rabbi Gorodetsky, “we have knowledge from a very reliable source that the children are coming.” Rabbi Vishedsky returned home and reported to his wife the joyous news.
After about two months, the Gorodetskys left the Soviet Union and arrived safely in Israel. The Vishedsky-Gorodetzky family spent a happy Tishrei holiday month united at last.
The amazing part of the story is that the exit visas were received the day after Tisha B’Av, about two weeks after Rabbi Simcha Gorodetsky received Moshiach’s answer. Moshiach knew about the expected approval even before the lucky ones themselves knew about it…[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_accordion][/vc_column][/vc_row]