I'm that refusenik
Two stirring calls for Jewish resistance against erasure
As diaspora Jews reel from the unprecedented tsunami of antisemitism that has engulfed the so-called civilised world, it becomes ever clearer that the key to Jewish resistance is a more muscular assertion of Jewish identity against the attempt to erase it.
Two initiatives, one an important and insightful new book and the other an original and brave campaign, have internalised that important lesson.
The new book is Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide by Izabella Tabarovsky. Izabella is a scholar of Soviet antizionism and contemporary antisemitism who grew up in the former Soviet Union. She emigrated to the US in 1989 at the age of 19 ancd now lives in Israel. She has drawn upon the experience of Soviet Jews 50 years ago to tease out parallels which can help Jewish students fight the hatred they confront on campus today.
Today’s Jewish students, writes Izabella, face a stark choice between conforming to the poisonous consensus that Israel is evil, Zionism is Nazism and that Jews are an oppressor class in need of re-education, and staying true to their beliefs. This choice turns them into dissidents rather like the Soviet Jews, at the mercy of a brainwashing, mind-twisting system that reverses truth and lies in order to erase their Jewish identity.
Like today’s Jewish students, she writes, young Soviet Jews faced a similar campaign of lies and libels about Israel and Zionism. Like today’s Jews on campus, they were expected to pass ideological litmus tests and pressured to disavow parts of their identity in order to succeed academically and professionally. Like today’s Jews, Soviet Jews were told this was “just antizionism” and not antisemitism. Like today’s onslaught, it was an attempt to erase the fundamentals of Jewish identity and reshape it into a version acceptable to the ruling ideological regime.
Those Jews who fought back came to be known as “refuseniks”. Their resistance eventually led to the exodus of one and a half million Jews from the USSR and helped bring down the Soviet empire. One million of them came to live in Israel and helped turn it into today’s technological powerhouse.
The celebrated Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky, who has written the book’s foreword, was imprisoned in the gulag and finally freed from the Soviet Union in 1986 to live in Israel. He has described how his newfound sense of Jewish identity became a powerful pyschological tool that helped him survive his persecution.
The common thread linking the Soviet Jews and the Jews of today facing the same kind of malevolent, totalitarian antisemitism is that resistance depends on proudly asserting that Jewish identity. Soviet Jews barely knew they had it until it suddenly manifested itself; many of today’s Jews either have a poor understanding and knowledge of what Jewish peoplehood actually means, or are too frightened to assert it.
Each of the book’s six chapters tells the story of specific Soviet Jewish dissidents followed by a profile of a contemporary American activist, before distilling the core lessons to be learned. The book is a fascinating and educative call to defiance and resistance against Jewish erasure.
A similar understanding motivated Eitan Chitayat , a branding entrepreneur in Israel, to launch “I’m That Jew,” a highly creative, viral branding campaign that empowers Jews to assert themselves as Jews and as Zionists in a proud and unafraid way. As Eitan writes on his website:
“I’m That Jew” reminds Jews that we are not alone. United as one: strong, unapologetic, and proud, it’s a nonprofit, grassroots movement highlighting Jewish values and achievements through films, events, social media, articles, and other creative platforms. To inspire Jews and allies to speak out and hold our heads high...
When more of us stand up and say, I’m That Jew, we don’t just strengthen ourselves — we strengthen each other. We build real community, forge strong bonds, and bring in like-minded allies who see us standing tall.
That’s how narratives shift. That’s how we reclaim our story… By creating a forever narrative — one rooted in pride, resilience, and visibility — we ensure the world knows who we are and what we stand for. Always.
Eitan has now made a short video for social media with an inspiring message about how Jews can and should fight back. I’m honoured that he has so generously referred to me and my most recent book, The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West and Why Only They Can Save it, as part of this resistance.
You can watch the video by clicking the arrow below.
Follow Izabella and Eitan to transform this dark time into an opportunity to grow something precious, positive and productive.
