In 1968, Boris Kochubiyevsky, a young Jewish engineer from Kyiv wrote an open letter to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. It contained a line that would become a rallying cry for a generation:
“I am a Jew. I want to live in Israel.”
In May 1969, Kochubiyevsky was sentenced to three years in a labor camp for “Slander of Soviet Reality”.
History added a bitter twist. His trial was held in the very courtroom where, in 1913, Mendel Beilis had stood accused in the infamous blood-libel case. Two Jews, two show trials, one room, separated by half a century.
Kochubiyevsky survived, and in 1972 he reached Israel, where he became known as Baruch Ashi.
His courage helped ignite the international movement for Soviet Jewry.
"I am a Jew. I want to live in Israel."
written by Boris Kochubiyevsky z”l
TO: The Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee Brezhnev
The First Secretary of the (Ukraine CP) Central Committee – Shelest
COPY TO: The Investigator of the Prosecutor’s Office in the Shevchenko Region of the city of Kiev – V. V. Doroshenko
FROM: The Accused of Slander of Soviet Reality – B. L. Kochubiyevsky, Jew
I am a Jew. I want to live in the Jewish State. This is my right, just as it is the right of a Ukrainian to live in the Ukraine, the right of a Russian to live in Russia, the right of a Georgian to live in Georgia.
I want to live in Israel.
This is my dream, this is the goal not only of my life but also of the lives of hundreds of generations which preceded me, of my ancestors who were expelled from their land.
I want my children to study in a school in the Hebrew language.
I want to read Jewish papers, I want to attend a Jewish theatre. What’s wrong with that? What is my crime? Most of my relatives were shot by the fascists. My father perished and his parents were killed. Were they alive now, they would be standing at my side: Let me go!
I have repeatedly turned with this request to various authorities and have achieved only this: Dismissal from my job, my wife’s expulsion from her Institute; and, to crown it all, a criminal charge of slandering Soviet reality. What is this slander? Is it slander that in the multi-national Soviet State only the Jewish people can not educate its children in Jewish schools? Is it slander that there is no Jewish theatre in the USSR? Is it slander that in the USSR there are no Jewish papers? By the way, no one even denies this. Perhaps it is slander that for over a year I have not succeeded to obtain an exit permit for Israel? Or is it slander that nobody wants to speak to me, that there is nobody to complain to? Nobody reacts. But even this isn’t the heart of the matter. I don’t want to be involved in the national affairs of a state in which I consider myself an alien. I want to go away from here. I want to live in Israel. My wish does not contradict Soviet law.
I have an affidavit of invitation from my relatives; all the formalities have been observed. Is that why you are instituting a criminal case against me?
Is that why my home was searched?
I am not asking for mercy. Listen to the voice of reason:
Let me go!
As long as I live, as long as I am capable of feeling, I shall devote all my strength to obtain an exit permit for Israel. And even if you should find it possible to sentence me for this — I shall anyway, if I live long enough to be freed, be prepared even then to make my way even on foot to the homeland of my ancestors.
Boris Kochubiyevsky
November 28, 1968
