Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Simchatime at the Muqata

Don't miss this incredible post at the Muqata:

http://muqata.blogspot.com/2008/01/miracle-girl-wedding-of-rachel.html

Jameel allows us to share in a true simcha.

Those of us who were teenagers in the early eighties remember how many hours we spent working for the SSSJ (Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry). We wrote letters and signed petitions and attended rallies, and every spring we traveled to Manhattan to march down Fifth Avenue and shout "Let my people go!" We were working to free millions of Jews, but there was one person that symbolized the face of Soviet Jewry to us- Anatoly Sharansky. And it was his beautiful young wife Avital that traveled the world, speaking to kings and presidents and ambassadors, pleading for her husband's release from a Soviet prison.

When Sharansky was finally freed in 1986, I cried with happiness.

And now, reading about the wedding of their daughter Rachel in Israel, I find myself crying again. I just love happy endings.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for a link to a posting that made my day in every way.

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Hi SuperRaizy -

Thanks for the link...

So much of the 80's were devoted to Soviet Jewry; I recall demonstration after demonstration...first as a younger kid in the 70's, a teenager in the 80's...getting arrested (for sitting on the street in front of the UN). And then seeing Sharansky arrive in Israel at the airport (I cut yeshiva that day)...and now this milestone of his daughter's marriage. It's not a happy ending -- its a happy continuation. May they continue to celebrate many more smachot.

Regards from the Hills of the Shomron.

--J.