Sharansky headed Down Under
APART from his role as chairman of the Jewish Agency, there is a personal dimension to Natan Sharansky’s visit to Australia next month – a son-in-law made aliyah with his Australian parents as a one-year-old and family members still live in Melbourne.
The legendary refusenik turned politician will be the keynote speaker at the Zionist Federation of Australia’s biennial conference in Melbourne on March 30, and will also address communal events at Beth Weizmann, Melbourne, on April 1 and the Central Synagogue, Sydney, on March 27.
The AJN caught up with Sharansky as he was taking part in the Joint Initiative Between the Government of Israel and World Jewry, a seminar organised by the Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs in partnership with the Jewish Agency.
Sharansky said the initiative was important because “the Israeli government is taking much bigger responsibility for the future of the Jewish people and is going to make a decision to put huge sums of money into safeguarding the future identity of world Jewry.
“World Jewry will be the full partner, not only in financing projects but developing these projects. It’s not like in the past when the Israeli government would say ‘We need Project Renewal’ or ‘We need Operation Exodus’ and world Jewry was mobilised. This time the projects are really developed together.”
Asked what he found distinctive about the Australian Jewish community, Sharansky said: “They are very Jewish – the percentage of children going to Jewish schools is very, very high, they are very generous, the level of donations of the Australian Jewish community to our Jewish and Israeli causes is extremely high, they are very closely connected to Israel – and they’re very sporting – for my Australian family, sport is a very big part of their lives.”
Born in the USSR in 1948, Sharansky was a key dissident and spokesman for Soviet Jewry, demanding the right of Jews to emigrate. He was arrested in 1977 and spent years in a notorious prison camp in the Siberian gulag. He finally arrived in Israel in 1986, and later became a politician and human-rights activist, founding the pro-immigration Yisrael B’Aliyah party.
He said his imprisonment left him with an abiding philosophy about humankind. “Every person has two very deep desires – to be free and to belong.”
ZFA president Philip Chester said: “His incredible biography, activism and involvement as chairman of the Jewish Agency is inspiring and we welcome him, his voice and his narrative.”
PETER KOHN
Natan Sharansky
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