How We Returned to Egypt : From Communist Russia to Fundamentalist Israel

by Grossman, Dina; Shirim, Yaakol

• ISBN13: 9780972259507
• ISBN10: 0972259503
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-01
• Publisher: Tzipora Pubns Inc

Summary

THE TRUTH ABOUT PEOPLE WHO LIFTED THE IRON CURTAIN In the ongoing debate about the new "Cold War" between Islam and the West, there is little reference to the growing internal threat to Israel of becoming another fundamentalist state. "How We Returned to Egypt" describes the emigration of Russian Jews to Israel where, owing to the force of local circumstances, they become victims of Haredim (Trembling Before God). Haredim is the name for those Jews that under the guise of ultra-Orthodox Jewish religion propagandize the same system of values as any fundamentalist group in the world does. For example, even here, among people who raise their numerous children with the money they receive from US Foreign Aid to Israel, anti-Americanism is flourishing.Due to aggressive proselytizing and the prohibition of birth control, Haredim are today the fastest growing segment of Israeli society. At the same time, twenty-five percent of the six and a half million Israeli Jews are Jews from the former USSR. The particulars of their background - unfamiliarity with Judaism and the absence of financial resources - have made them especially vulnerable to psychological manipulation and pressure. The Movement of Soviet Jews for Repatriation to Israel was born in the early 70s. For many of us it meant a long and difficult struggle with Soviet authorities for exit visas. Sadly, twenty years later, the same people who risked their lives for freedom and idealistic Jewish values in the USSR are being brainwashed in Israel into becoming "real Jews" and united into a community that is totalitarian and chauvinistic in its nature. This book describes how the process originated and developed, who are the major players, and which psychological techniques have been used. The author appeals to the international community with a call for help and suggests a highly controversial solution to the problem.

Author Biography

ôHow We Returned to Egyptö is the first book by Taakol Shirim. Mrs. Shirim was born in Moscow, USSR. In the 1970s she joined the Movement of Soviet Jews for Repatriation to Israel. She studied Hebrew and Jewish History in underground seminars held in private Moscow apartments where teachers would come from all over the world. In 1980 Mrs. Shirim organized and participated in an 18-day hunger strike during the Moscow Olympic Games, as a protest against suspension of Jewish immigration from the USSR. In 1981 Mrs. Shirim immigrated to Israel. In 1989 she returned to Israel after her studies in New York and exposure to democratic American culture. For four years she lived in the closed and secretive community of the newly religious Russian Jews, observed their lives and studied their beliefs and values without being or becoming a Haredi. Her experience is truly unique because with such communities, the saying goes ôonce you are in there is no way outö. The book ôHow We Returned to Egyptö is a combination of this experience with in-depth studies of cults and fundamentalisms that Mrs. Shirim undertook upon her return to New York. Mrs. Grossman was an art student when she applied to Soviet authorities for a permission to immigrate to Israel. She was immediately expelled from her college. She received a BS degree with a concentration in Painting from the Art Studio Program in New York City, SUNY, and for two years she studied in the Graduate Communication Design Program in Pratt Institute, New York where she became passionate about advertising that did not exist in the USSR. Advertising taught her to combine her art skills with writing skills and taught her the importance of the strong and unique concept in communication. At the present time Mrs. Shirim lives in New York.