Teresa Heinz, the wife of Sen. John Kerry, who is President Barack Obama’s likely nominee for secretary of state, recalled her days as a congressional wife fighting for Soviet Jews. She was in town to accept an award from the American Jewish Committee.
Twenty-five years ago, I joined hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans on the National Mall to draw attention to the plight of Soviet Jews. But this movement did not come to the Jewish community speedily.
After three decades of tireless activism, a grass-roots band from Philadelphia had grown into a force too powerful to ignore, even by the Kremlin, 4,700 miles away.
Twenty-five years ago this week, some 250,000 Jews descended on Washington to demand freedom for their brothers and sisters trapped in the Soviet Union.
Sivan 16, 5773
