Former Prisoner of Zion Yosef Mendelevitch made an emotional return to the city where he was imprisoned in the 1970s to join hundreds of Jews from across Russia for the 4th Annual Limmud FSU (former Soviet Union) in St. Petersburg this weekend.
St. Petersburg claims the second largest Jewish community in Russia today with about 100,000 Jewish residents,
Mendelevitch was held in a Soviet prison after being arrested for leading the 1970 “Operation Wedding,” a Soviet Jewish operation to steal a plane from then-Leningrad’s airport and escape to Israel. After gaining his freedom, he made Aliyah to Israel.
Mendelevitch recounted his experiences in Operation Wedding, recalling celebrating Shabbat in the Gulag and describing his feelings about returning to St. Petersburg.
“I spent a lot of time in this city but only as a prisoner, so I don’t know it at all,” he said. “I’m certainly not nostalgic. The Land of Israel is the only place to which I have an emotional attachment.”
