Thane Rosenbaum leads a panel of discussion with Natan Sharansky (“the most famous refusenik in the world”), Richard Perle (political adviser to President Reagan), Professor Wiesel, (author of The Jews of Silence inter alia) and Gal Beckerman (author of When They Come For Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry.) They discuss the physical, political and spiritual redemption story of Soviet Jewry; how a symphony of disparate groups with different strategies orchestrated the liberation of Soviet Jewry. Professor Wiesel recalls how he discovered on his visit to the Soviet Union in 1965 that Russian Jews wanted to be Jewish. Upon his return from the Soviet Union, Professor Wiesel came for his first encounter at the Y and gave a report about Soviet Jewry before his book came out. They also talk about the impact of the Six-Day War on Soviet Jewry and American/world Jewry. Professor Wiesel points out that Israel’s victory had metaphysical dimensions beyond the military implications; “it was one of the greatest events in my life.” It enabled Jews to fight for Soviet Jews. Also discussed is the release of the Nixon tapes in which Kissinger is recorded as saying: “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern, maybe a humanitarian concern.” Professor Wiesel picks up on the word “maybe” and observes that here was Kissinger, a Jewish refugee with no sense of Jewish history.