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Home » Extraordinary interview with Natan Sharansky

Extraordinary interview with Natan Sharansky

The New Neo Posted on by

Natan Sharansky is interviewed in the following video, in which he speaks on growing up in the Soviet Union and the mental gymnastics it required, becoming a “refusenik,” spending nine years in the Gulag, living in Israel after his release, and what’s going on now both in Israel and around the world regarding anti-Semitism. I found it to be an unusually fascinating talk by a courageous and insightful man.

I’ve written about Sharansky before. This post from 2015 concerns his contention that the many Jews leaving France at the time were a warning sign that liberal democracy was in grave danger of dying there. And this post is about his description of living what he calls a “double life” under the Soviets.

I’ve cued up a couple of short clips from the recent video. In this first one, Sharansky describes his reaction at the age of five to Stalin’s death:

Here he describes how, about twenty years ago, he noticed what was happening on campuses and correctly predicted a rise in anti-Semitism as a result of the spread of “progressive” (neo-Marxist) viewpoints:

Here’s the entire interview. One of the things that occurred to me while watching it is that, for many secular American Jews on the left, 10/7 and the world’s reaction to it shocked them into feeling as though they were part of Jewish history, and helped them to identify with that history, perhaps for the first time.

I want to add that when Sharansky says “left” and “right” he’s not talking about small-government conservatism; he’s using the word “right” more in the European sense:

Comments

Extraordinary interview with Natan Sharansky — 10 Comments

  1. Thanks for putting this together. Natan Sharansky is on my short list most for “Most Favorite Person.” A truly wonderful man, and one that many on the left and right could learn from. I’ve seen him speak twice now. He is always interesting and insightful. In person he comes across as an incredibly warm, genuine, and self deprecating person. Astounding considering what he endured.

  2. Essentially, he defeated the Soviet Union.

    (And he offers a very compelling reason to learn, and study, chess…)

  4. Marisa:

    Long story, but the short version is that things like Nazism are considered to be on the right, as well as state religions being highly involved in governing. That’s as opposed to American small government conservatism and classical liberalism, which we in the US consider the essence of the right.

  5. Except that starting with Obama and continuing—supercharged—with “Biden”, any American conservative who opposes the “Biden” regime is considered beyond the pale…and—too-often—treated as such.

    So that the difference, while true once upon a time, no longer holds.

    (The US was supposed to learn lessons from Sweden’s democratic socialism. Now “Biden” is implementing Europe’s dangerous Weimar-style distinctions…but I suppose if one intends to create a one-world nirvana, then one has to break a few eggs…)

  6. Like in russia there was the classical liberal party yabloko but most of their leaders were discredited by the rise of the oligarch class navalny is one of the few that isnt he was considered too uncooth for the intelligentsia once upona time

  7. My favorite Natan Sharansky story is when he was finally released. The Soviets told him to walk straight to the plane.

    Sharansky zig zagged in the snow

  9. @ Steve57 > “It’s in character”

    Absolutely.
    And, it is true – as is another equally uplifting example of his spirit.

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2015/04/sharansky-the-u-s-has-lost-the-courage-of-its-convictions/

    Sharansky spend almost a decade in Soviet prison because of his activities on behalf of Jews who wanted to emigrate to Israel. Sharansky was subjected to torture and other indignities, but never lost his spirit. Sharansky notoriously refused to obey even the most mundane orders from his captors. Sharansky understood that to compromise even a little would lead to compromising a lot. Throughout his ordeal, Sharansky kept his spirits alive by reading a small book of psalms.

    As Sharansky was being led to the airplane that would take him from the Soviet Union to East Germany for the exchange, the Soviets confiscated his book of psalms. It would have been easy for Sharansky simply to keep walking towards the plane and freedom. But Sharansky understood that the Soviets confiscated his book of psalms not because they wanted the book, but because they wanted to show that even in this last moment, they were in control.

    In front of reporters covering his departure, Sharansky sat in the snow refusing to move unless the Soviets gave him back his book of psalms. Here was this diminutive man, after 10 years in prison, on the verge of freedom, refusing to budge unless one of the world’s two superpowers gave him back his book. And give him back his book of psalms they did. Sharansky proceeded to the plane, where he read Psalm 30: “I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.”

    Jay Nordlinger’s 2005 interview with Sharansky recounts not only the episode in the snow, but also the final moments when Sharansky walked to the car for the exchange:

    Sharansky spent nine years in the Gulag, a harrowing time in which he demonstrated what resistance is. More than 400 of those days were spent in punishment cells; more than 200 were spent on hunger strikes. His refusal to concede anything to the Soviet state was almost superhuman. This was true to the very last. When they relinquished him to the East Germans, they told him to walk straight to a waiting car — “Don’t make any turns.” Sharansky zig-zagged his way to that car.

    The line about never compromising is reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn’s admonition to “live not by lies.”

    I have read Sharansky’s first two books, Fear No Evil (biography up to his release and a bit afterward) and The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, co-written with Ron Dermer (political philosophy), and recommend them strongly.
    Despite the essential horror of his situation in the USSR, Fear No Evil has episodes of wry humor that fit well with the zig zag story.
    His second biography, released in 2020 takes up the story of his life and work in Israel.
    https://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/321127/new-memoir-reveals-natan-sharanskys-life-as-a-jewish-activist/

    Tangentially, in the debate over being intelligent (IQ-wise) vs being smart, he was clearly both.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky

    He attended physics and mathematics high school No.17 in Donetsk. As a child, he was a chess prodigy. He performed in simultaneous and blindfold exhibitions, usually against adults. At the age of 15, he won the championship in his native Donetsk. Sharansky graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. When incarcerated in solitary confinement, he claims to have maintained his sanity by playing chess against himself in his mind. Sharansky beat the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition in Israel in 1996.

    Technically, my BA is also in “Applied Mathematics,” so I would like to claim some reflected glory, but I’m not anywhere near his league in either intelligence or ability.
    And I’m a lousy chess player.

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